Google Sitemaps :: Are They Or Aren't They Lucrative SEO Tools?

By Rob Sullivan

Google has had a feature out for some time which allows webmasters to create a sitemap file to help Google's crawlers find and index content.

It sounds like a great idea. After all, it's much easier to feed the crawler the content then hope it finds it on it's own.

But is a Google sitemap worthwhile? Is it even necessary?

When the Google Sitemap program first started my thought was "That's kinda cool but what's the real benefit?"

So, I thought I'd try it out and submit sitemaps for a few sites that I own.

When Google Sitemaps first came out it was very difficult to figure out what all the entries meant as well as how to actually create the sitemap.

Sure, it was XML based, and I could plainly see what they expected but when you have a large site, how do you go about creating this?

Then Google came out with http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html, a sitemap generator which is a program intended to help you create a sitemap for your site. This does help speed up the process but unless you are a developer it is a little difficult to implement.

Also, you need access to your server to run the script required to generate the sitemap. If you are unsure you should check with your web host to see if you have terminal access to execute Python scripts.

Personally, I've never tried the Google Sitemapper tool but I have used others. For example, on my personal blog which uses Moveable Type, I found a blog post which shows How to build a Movable Type Google sitemap template http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2005/06/google_sitemaps.html. And I've used Xenu and an Excel spreadsheet http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=199253 which works great as well.

Now that the sitemap creation is covered, let's get into the question at hand. Is a Google sitemap really worth the effort?

A few months ago I would have said no, but lately Google has been adding features that make me think otherwise.

For example, if you've gone through the verification process (which is really just placing a blank HTML file on the site and having Google find it) and ensured your 404 errors are properly configured you can get access to a wealth of additional intel.

One such feature is the "Top Search Queries." This tells you which queries were used when your pages appeared in the search results but may not have been clicked on.

In other words, these are actual searcher queries that were performed on Google where your site may have appeared but not had click-through's.

From a keyword research point of view, this is a huge advantage to you. By monitoring your sitemap stats you can easily see some of the terms people are using and perhaps determine what you need to do to rank higher for those terms so you too can get the clicks that your competitors are receiving.

If you don't have ready access to log analysis or other stats, the Google sitemap can also tell you what terms actually drove traffic to your site.

In other words, these were searches performed on Google that actually generated clicks for your site.

There's also a wealth of other information. For example, "Crawl Stats" shows you how Googlebot sees your site, errors generated by it, and even a PageRank distribution chart detailing how well PageRank is distributed.

So, if you are like me and wondering if a Google sitemap is worth it I'd say yes, it is. The information provided, while mostly technical, can help you troubleshoot problems as well as provide ideas to help you improve your positioning.

About The Author:

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is a link building company. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.

How To Choose Right Keywords To Market Your Website

By Daniel Smith

Anyone who knows anything about how search engines work will tell you that you need to choose the perfect keywords in order to improve your search engine ranking. Yet, if you are relatively new to the website creation scene, you may have very little knowledge about what keywords are, what they do and how they enhance search engine optimization (SEO). Nevertheless, understanding what keywords are and how they work is critical to your websites success and the amount of traffic you will receive at your website. Let's take a look at what keywords are and how to choose the right keywords to improve your SEO techniques. In doing so, you will immediately be able to put such knowledge to use and improve your page ranking in search engines.

Keywords are used by search engines to determine whether or not your web pages will address the needs of Internet users that are conducting a search. The more keywords that are found on your web pages, the more likely your webpage will be listed as a response to a user's query. Yet, a webmaster must bear in mind that not enough keywords on a webpage will have little to no affect on a web page's search engine ranking, while a web page with too many keywords may also have little affect. Why? Quite frankly, an obvious attempt to sway a search engines listing actually reduces the quality factor of a web page and a search engine will rate it lower than it would a web page that contains quality information.

Therefore, choosing keywords is part of the website marketing process: having the right keywords appear on a webpage will result in increased traffic to your site. There are a number of web resources that will help you determine what keywords are frequently used, like keyword generators and the like, but the problem with such tools is they don't necessarily identify the right keywords that will ultimately draw traffic to your site. Instead, you need to be choosy about what keywords you use. First, you can go with the most popular keywords suggested, but the most popular keywords don't always necessarily work in drawing traffic to your site, nor do they always help you improve your SEO and page ranking within major search engines.

First, you will want to try and use truly specific keywords when generating keyword enriched web pages. Try not to be too vast in your descriptions-if a keyword generates 20,000 pages in a search engine, chances are your keyword enriched page isn't going to make a huge difference in you web traffic. Yet, if you are using keywords that few than a hundred sites use you may find that your search engine ranking is increased because so few sites use the specific keywords you have chosen. Obviously then, it serves to tell you that one keyword enriched webpage may not make a huge difference in your overall web traffic, but several keyword enriched pages will. Just be sure to use uniquely defined, themed keywords within your web pages and watch your ranking improve in the major search engines.

Another unique way of selecting keywords can be found in viewing similar websites to your own. Find out what other webmasters are using to draw traffic to their website. How do you do this? First, review many websites that are similar to yours. Watch for repeated themes within websites-do you see a pattern? Take that pattern and use it to your advantage, using a keyword generator determines which keywords are most unique that fit the pattern that other websites are using. Next, generate a few web pages that are keyword enriched with your selected keywords. Conversely, if you are familiar with html, you can view a webmasters source codes and see what Meta Tags they are utilizing. Meta Tags reveal the keywords of a page and can give you a good clue as to how the competition is approaching the keyword enrichment process, if at all.

Whatever you do, when in the process of searching for keywords, don't just throw your best guess out there and go with it. Although it is possible that you may get lucky and actually improve your website traffic and search engine ranking, it is unlikely. Most keywords that are the product of a webmaster's guess are far too broad to make any kind of difference in search engine ranking or web traffic.

There are a lot of little tricks one can use to make the best of the keyword enrichment process. You can write articles that focus solely on the keywords you have selected or you can hire freelance writers to do the work for you. You can make use of a variety of free and subscription web tools to improve the type of keywords you choose. Either way, once you have found the right keywords you will immediately note an increase in your web traffic-an increase that undoubtedly accompanies your improved search engine ranking-an improvement that is the direct result of your improve SEO techniques.

About The Author:

Daniel Smith writes about directory text links http://www.linksattack.com

Search Engine Optimization: Four Vital Steps For Optimizing Your Website

By Donald Nelson

There is a bit of confusion about search engine optimization. Some people think that SEO (the abbreviated form) is nothing more than tricking search engines into giving a high ranking for a particular site. Others think that search engine optimization is so complex that they could not possibly understand it. Neither of these views are correct. Search engine optimization is best defined as the art and science of building web pages that are both search engine friendly and
user friendly. Below are four basic steps that you should take when optimizing your web pages.

1. Your web design should emphasize text and not graphics.

"Search engine friendly" means that search engines should be able to find data on your site that they can put in their data bases. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a search engine is trying to classify pages by text and not by images. If you have an opening page with a beautiful picture of the sea and only two words of text saying "enter here" then this page will not rank high in searches for Florida Vacations. Similarly if you have a headline with important text containing your site's keywords it should not be displayed as a gif or jpeg image. Pages that are all flash or all images are not search engine friendly, and often are not user friendly as well.

2. Links to your interior pages should be easily found by search engines

An important thing to remember is that you want not only your main page, but all of your interior pages to be included in the search engine index. While most people will probably enter your site through the main page, many will enter after doing searches which lead them to your inner pages. The best way to make sure that search engines will find and index your inner pages is to include text links to these pages. If you have navigation system which uses Java script or images, then it is best to add an additional text link navigation bar at the bottom of the site to ensure that the robot follows the links to your inner pages.

3. Your pages should be built around specific keywords or keyword phrases

Robotic search engines and human users have one thing in common: they are trying to figure out what your site or your particular web page is all about. It is not possible to get high rankings for thirty different search terms with only one web page. However it is possible to build separate web pages which explain and give importance to various aspects of your organization's activity. These sub pages can be optimized so that they perform well in searches for your various keywords.

4. Once your material is organized, then your keywords should appear in strategic portions of your web pages

If your site is about Florida Vacations, then these words should appear in the following places of your html pages:

a. In the file name or the url.

If your site is called www.floridavacations.com then this will give you a head start in any searches for this term. Similarly if your company is called XYZ Travels you may have a web page with this url: www.xyztravels.com/floridavacations.html

The url or file name is an important indicator to a search engine, so don't miss the opportunity to put your important term either in your main domain name or in your file names.

b. In the title tag

The text that is displayed in the blue line at the top of your browser is your title tag. The title tag is located in the section of the document. If your main phrase is "Florida Vacations" then the title tag in your html document should look something like this: Florida Vacations: Florida Vacation Information by XYZ travel

c. In the Description tag

The description tag is not seen on the web page but search engines often display it as the text which gives the searcher an idea of what your page is about. The description tag should be compelling, and make someone want to click and see your page, while also containing the keywords that are in your url and your title tag. A description tag for this site might look as follows:

d. In the headlines

Just as someone reading a newspaper looks at headlines to find out what is important, a search engine robot looks at the headlines of a web page in order to pick up the essential feature of that page. Put your main phrase in a headline and place it near the top of the page. Your headline text should be enclosed with special header tags such as , , . A headline tag for our hypothetical page could be written as follows: Florida Vacations: Plan Your Vacation Now And Save Money or Accommodations, Entertainment and Transport in Florida

If you don't like the look of the h1 tag, then use a smaller tag, h2 or h3, or adjust your site's style sheet so that the h1 tag is displayed in a small font which better matches your body text.

e. In the body text of your page

Your main keywords or key phrase should appear in the first paragraph of text and in a natural way throughout the text and also at the end of the page. In normal writing you would first introduce your subject, then explain what it is about and then summarize at the end. Follow this same procedure when you start writing your web page. Pages written in this style will automatically have correct keyword density and distribution.

f. In anchor text on your page

Anchor text is the clickable portion of links on your web page. Suppose you are describing your Florida Vacations and you want to direct your web visitors to an inside page with more information about this subject. Instead of making a link that says "click here," it would be better to have a link that says "Click here for more information about Florida Vacations" or even better, the link text will only be "Florida Vacations" and the "click here" will be rendered as normal text.

If you follow these search-engine-optimization steps when building your website you will end up with web pages that are easily understood by your visitors, and easily classified and indexed by search engines.

About The Author:

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He is the proprietor of A1-Optimization http://www.a1-optimization.com and provides search engine optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking and article marketing services. He recently launched a new reprint article directory located at http://www.a1-articledirectory.com

Business Blog Savvy: Avoiding the 8 Pitfalls of Do-It-Yourself Blogging

By Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D. and Denise Wakeman

The Blog Squad

You can pat yourself on the back if you're one of the thousands of small business professionals that have set up a blog to communicate with your potential clients. Or, maybe you haven't started your business blog yet, but intend to. Take note now so you can avoid some of the consequences of do-it-yourself blogging.

You've heard all the hype, listened to a few podcasts and teleseminars, and finally sorted out for yourself how blogging can really work for your targeted niche of readers and potential clients. You've set up your business blog.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "If I'm so smart at my business, why do I have a dumb do-nothing blog?"

Here are a few of the pitfalls of creating your blog without any guidance from blogging experts:

1. You don't know how to use your blogging software, yet you expect to look like an expert and build credibility. How could you know? Blogs haven't been around that long, and the blogging software is continually being upgraded. You need to learn how to use your blog features that increase your findability on the Internet and readership. For example, you need to regularly use trackback, pinging, and permalinks features.

2. You are writing in a vacuum, without knowing what questions your clients want answered. You haven't done any keyword research, or asked your current clients what they'd like to read. Even worse, you under the impression that a blog should be like an online diary. You are writing about your personal life and details, detracting from the on-target, focused purpose of your blog as a business building tool.

3. You haven't researched other blogs in your field, or spent any time on them, leaving comments. You need to get out there and raise your hand in the blogosphere, so people
will know you're there. You also need to know what's going on in your field.

4. You haven't put a subscription form on your blog, and you don't understand the whole RSS feed thingy. Your readers can't find you or know when you have updated your blog.

5. You haven't put any images on your blog and your blog doesn't look as neat and tidy as your business is. It doesn't reflect your business image or brand.

6. You haven't put any content-appropriate ads on your blog, that don't distract from your own products. Your blog has a non-professional, non-business look and feel to it.

7. You haven't used categories for your blog posts and your readers are confused about wide-ranging subjects you write about. What is your core message? What is the focus of your blog? And important question you must answer for your readers: What's in your blog for them?

8. You haven't written anything for a month. When you've got a blog that has lack-luster traffic, your enthusiasm for writing begins to wane. Why bother posting, if no one is reading your words of wisdom? Then your blog slips even further, and begins to look like a ghost town. Worse, it's still up on the Web, and people will find you and decide you maybe don't care, went out of business, or changed your mind.

Here's what is promised by having a blog:

- Search engines will find you better - website trafficgalore
- Instant credibility in your area of expertise
- A way to communicate with people interested in your field
- Dialogue through comments with potential clients
- Increased sales of your products, whether tangible goods, informational products, or services

How could you possibly know the most effective blogging strategies and tactics without learning and guidance by experts? Sure, blogs are for everyone and the software makes it easy and cheap for anyone to start a blog.

But a professional business blog that drives traffic and gets clients must be optimized correctly and treated as a valuable marketing strategy.

Here are some solutions:

1. Study the professional business blogs in the blogosphere and model their strategies.
2. Buy an ebook on how to set up and optimize a professional business blog
3. Take an advanced course in blogging (not one that just tells you how to get a free account and set it up, but one to explain how to optimize for business.)
4. Hire a team of professional blog experts to coach you in using your blog for your business.
5. Hire a business blog consultant team to help you tweak your blog, or do an extreme makeover
6. Delete your blog and start all over again

Blogs are an effective and powerful marketing tool for businesses of all sizes and types. Like any tool, though, you need to know how to use it correctly to maximize your results.

About the Author:

As the The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman have teamed up to work with professionals to maximize their marketing strategies by implementing blogs, ezines and ecommerce tactics. They have co-authored "Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide for Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog." Take The Blog Squad's free assessment to find out if you're ready for a business blog: http://snipurl.com/Blog_Assessment

How To Find A Home Business Opportunity

By Stephen Kreutzer

Working at home is something that appeals to many people. The benefits are great. The problem is that many people have the same idea, so finding a home business is sometimes difficult. There are plenty of opportunities, but if a person doe not know where to look they could miss out on the best ones or worse, not find one at all.

Most home businesses take place in cyber space via the internet, so it is only natural that it be the place to look for home business opportunities. The internet is huge, so having some idea of where to look is a good idea. Running a search for home business opportunities will bring up a countless number of pages. This is probably the most time consuming way to search because the person has to visit each website and try to figure out if the opportunity is legitimate. There are also many duplicate listings that come up, so the person is wasting time by looking through the same sites again and again. Another, and perhaps better, option is to look at niche websites that are directed towards people looking to work at home. Once a person finds one of these sites they will usually find a nice listing of potential work at home business opportunities. They can also use the links found on the site to find additional work at home niche sites. Finally, the best way to find a good home business opportunity is to get a referral from a friend. This is great because they can tell the person about the company and what it is like to work for them. It also helps a person to avoid scams.

Finding a home business opportunity can seem next to impossible when a person is staring at a computer screen filled with home business search results, but the ideas mentioned above can help a person to do it easier. There is nothing wrong with any of the methods. They will all help the person reach their ultimate goal of finding a home business opportunity.

About The Author:

Stephen Kreutzer is a freelance publisher based in Cupertino, California. He publishes articles and reports in various ezines and provides home business tips on
http://www.cheapbusinessideas.com.

Which Affiliate Programs Do I Personally Recommend?

By Tim Knox

I personally receive over a dozen checks and commission payments every month from various affiliate programs that I promote.

Last month, those checks totaled more than $10,000 and some months they have been as high as $25,000.

Given my success as an affiliate marketer, I'm often asked what affiliate programs I personally recommend.

The answer is easy because it's actually a pretty short list.

First, let me explain what an affiliate program is.

Affiliate programs are used by monster companies like Amazon, eBay, and many others to recruit resellers (affiliates) to help bring customers to their websites.

But the affiliate programs I prefer are those offered by smaller companies that sell digital products online. Those are the programs that pay up to 75% commission, while most larger
companies may pay just a few percent.

You can join an affiliate program usually by applying online at the company's website. Being accepted into the program gives you the right to market the company's products as an independent reseller and receive commissions when you make a sale.

I've looked at hundreds of affiliate programs over the years and have come up with my own personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs that I actively participate in and heartily recommend.

Some of these programs require that you pay a membership fee and some do not. The reason some programs charge a fee (including my own affiliate programs) is because you get more
value as an affiliate.

In most cases you get a full-blown website from which to sell the products and copies of most - if not all - of the products you'll be selling. For example, I charge $124.50 to join my program, but you get access to over $500 in products.

To make my list of the Top Affiliate Programs is not an easy task.

First of all, I have to personally be an affiliate of the program and must have earned considerable sums to prove its validity.

To make my list the program must also:

Offer quality products that offer real value, no fluff Offer high commissions (30% minimum, 50% preferred) Offer 2 tier commissions (if the 1st tier payout is substantial, I can live with a single tier)

Have a proven track record of success
Have a spotless reputation
Pay commissions on time, every time
Have well-known affiliates who will vouch for the program
Be more than 6 months old
Have a low rate or returns
Be referred to me by someone I trust.
That last one's a biggie for me. If one of my peers recommends a program, I know it's going to be good.

So, here is my personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs that make me thousands of dollars every month and with a little time and effort, there is no reason they can't do the same for you.

These are the programs that I personally participate in and recommend. If you're serious about starting your own affiliate marketing empire, take a close look at these.

Internet Marketing Center

IMC was founded by the late Corey Rudl and is now headed up by Derek Gehl, Corey's right hand man. IMC racked up $40 million in sales and pays out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to their affiliates. Their products are top notch, as is the support and the commissions. I regularly get checks from IMC that range from $3,000 to $7,000 a month. This program is free to join.

Click for details
DropshipDesign Turnkey Websites

This is the only turnkey dropship website company that I recommend and I have been their affiliate for 2 years now. I regularly earn $500 to $1,000 week as an affiliate and also have my own turnkey dropship product site that brings in revenue from orders placed by customers. You must sign on as a customer first, but doing so gets you your own turnkey website and affiliate marketing rights.

Click for details
Hot Item Finder

Dave Guindon is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet online. He's also one of the most talented programmers and product creators. His flagship product, Hot Item Finder, helps users identify what's hot and what's not on eBay. It's one of the best eBay related products I've ever seen. Dave's affiliate program is also tops in my book. His product converts like crazy and his support is second to none.

Click for details
1stPromotion.com

No one knows affiliate marketing better than Rick Davies and his brother Ron. They are considered "The Masters" at making a six-figure affiliate income from home with affiliate marketing. Using that expertise, the brothers Davies have created 1stPromotion.com, which is quickly becoming the top Clickbank affiliate site on the planet. Their turnkey system is great for
beginners at an extremely low cost.

Click for details
CBMall (Clickbank Mall)

I personally earn several thousand dollars in passive income every month with this system and there's no reason you can't do the same... and the great thing is, you don't even need a website to get started! No monthly charges. Great for beginners.

Click for details
Automatic Money Machine

Howard Mooreland's Automatic Money Machine has proven itself to be one of the top programs. Howard offers big commissions and his sales pages convert like mad. I never fail to generate
hundreds of dollars anytime I promote Howard's products, which help users build a web site in just a couple of hours that can literally start generating money instantly.

Click for details
Emergency Cash Generators

James Jones always delivers by providing his affiliates with excellent products that sell like mad. I have done so well promoting James' new book, Emergency Cash Generators, 101 Profit Generating Techniques, that it jumped into my Top 10 after just one month. You can't miss affiliating with James.

Click for details
MyClickPages.com

MyClickPages.com is the program I created specifically for Clickbank affiliates. http://myclickpages.com/ gives you a complete, professionally designed website from which you can sell my Clickbank registered products. I pay 50% commission on all sales. It's free to join, but please only do so if you are serious about affiliate marketing.

Click for details
DropshipWholesale.net

Naturally I have to recommend my own affiliate program. Yes, I charge for the affiliate license, but I also give affiliates a full blown website and copies of all my products and my track record is 2nd to none. I signed checks last year that paid out over several hundred thousand dollars to affiliates in 2004, so I know it works.

Click for details
Prosperity & Profits

My P&P affiliate program is one of the top programs on the web for serious internet marketers. As a P&P member and affiliate you get access to every section of the P&P website, including the wholesale database, the business opportunity and franchise database, the extensive ebook library, and more. Commissions are 50% of sales and paid monthly by check.

Click for details
There you go, my personal Top 10 Affiliate Programs, but don't think that is the definitive list. There are tens of thousands of products and companies that you can sign on with as an affiliate and earn commissions.

You can find most of them listed at Clickbank or Commission Junction.

About The Author:

Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker http://www.prosperityandprofit.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.timknox.com

Overcoming Barriers To Home Business Success

By Wendy Betterini

When we decide to start a home business, most of us are eager to get moving and achieve the success we know we're capable of. Some of us go full steam ahead and immediately start seeing
results, while others seem to keep running into snags and obstacles no matter how hard we try to get ahead. It's important to consider that we may have subconscious issues that are preventing us from moving forward and achieving the success we desire.

If you've been struggling to make a success of your home business and feel like you've got invisible walls holding you back, ask yourself these five questions:

1) Are you afraid of success? Most of us THINK we want to be successful, but deep down inside we fear it. Why would anyone fear success? Because being "successful" often comes with a lot of baggage. We aren't necessarily afraid of the success itself, but what comes along with it. We might find ourselves in the spotlight and have more attention and admiration thrown our way. That sounds like a good thing, but it can be unnerving if we're not prepared to deal with it. We might also find ourselves with increased responsibility. Can we handle the pressure and do what is required of us? Can we properly support a large team and customer base? What if we don't have what it takes? As these thoughts keep floating through our mind, self-doubt creeps in, and we find ourselves shying away from the activities that could bring the success we desire. The best remedy for these fearful thoughts is to keep affirming your own ability to handle whatever comes your way. Take some time to study the aspects of business you fear, such as building long-term customer relationships and leadership techniques. Knowledge is power, and as you learn and grow, your confidence will also.

2) Are you afraid of rejection or ridicule? This is a big issue for some of us. If we have a big enough fear of rejection, we will avoid seeking new customers, clients and recruits. A wonderful technique to overcome this fear is to practice releasing your expectation of the outcome. When you approach a potential customer or recruit, make it your mission to put the information in front of them, and not get hung up on whether they will buy or sign on. It can be helpful to set "action goals" versus "results goals" also. For example, instead of making it your goal to gain five new customers each week, make it your goal to APPROACH twenty potential customers each week. Don't worry about how many will join you, just focus on perfecting your presentation and being helpful, professional and available. If you have a good product and a positive attitude, people will be attracted to you and want what you have to offer. Your job is simply to make it available.

3) Do you have negative emotions about money? While we dream of having a large, successful business that pays well, many of us also have negative thoughts about people who have a lot of
money. We fear becoming one of "them" -- snobby, rude rich people. We might also feel guilty about having a lot of money when so many people in the world have nothing. If you have negative issues attached to money, you will resist the manifestation of it in your life. Your mind and heart will be at war and not allow you to create the wealth you truly want and deserve. The thing to understand about money is that it's simply the physical representation of abundance in your life. Money itself is not good or bad. It's what you do with the money that gives it positive or negative connotations. Just because you begin earning a lot of money doesn't mean you will turn into a snob. You can choose your attitude and remain just as kind and compassionate as you are today. And by having plenty of financial resources at your disposal, think of all the people you could help. Rather than feeling guilty about having a comfortable life, you can reach out and share your wealth with others.

4) Do you lack confidence? Lack of confidence in yourself, the company you represent, or the products you are selling can hold you back also. Confidence, like anything else, is a learned skill that grows stronger with practice. If you are new to your home business, you might shy away from approaching potential customers and recruits because you aren't comfortable with the procedures yet, or feel you don't know enough. You might be afraid that people will ask a question you can't answer. Remember the first few times you drove a car? You were nervous and cautious, weren't you? Are you more confident driving now? I bet you are, because you've done it thousands of times. You can also become comfortable with the aspects of your home business that frighten you, by simply practicing until you feel more comfortable with them. Devote some time to memorizing your prospecting script, the benefits of your products, and your approach. Write it all down and read it aloud over and over again until you've memorized it and feel more comfortable with it. Your confidence and enthusiasm will then shine through and attract success.

5) Are you afraid of failure? Some of us never even get started because we're so afraid we might fail. We're afraid to even try to make our dreams a reality. It seems safer to stay in our unhappy circumstances, because even though we aren't satisfied, at least they are familiar and comfortable. The unknown is scary. But if we don't try, we'll miss out on the chance to make our lives better. Progress and advancement in life is not gained by sitting meekly on the sidelines; we need to actually get in the game and start playing! The only true failures in life occur when we give up or don't try at all.

No matter what fears hold you back, know that you have the power to overcome them and achieve every success you desire. Simply begin changing your negative thoughts to positive ones, and take steps to make your dream a reality. When you come up against something that frightens you or makes you uncomfortable, know that you've just encountered an invisible barrier to your success. You can choose to let it defeat you, or you can smash it to bits by pushing right through it.

About The Author:

Wendy Betterini is a freelance writer, web designer and owner of http://www.CreativeWorkAtHome.com, a resource center for home business owners and telecommuters. Visit today for information on how to make your work at home experience successful.

Web Analytics: Make A Plan. And Stick To It.

by Marc Travis

When it comes to analyzing your web site statistics, what's infinitely more important than the numbers themselves is the actual trend that they portray. If you're trying to build traffic to a web site (and who isn't these days?) then your first concern should be that the numbers are increasing on a regular basis.

To properly watch those numbers, and know when you need to make adjustments, you should not depend on analyzing statistics that have been logged over time. Instead, you should make a daily, weekly and monthly schedule to look over certain statistics.

For example, you may want to watch daily trends in traffic and page views so that any trend lasting more than a couple of days can be immediately addressed.

Once a week, you might want to look at how many hits you're getting via search engines.

And, perhaps, once per month you'll want to look at how many page views per visit are being generated by search-engines versus links, versus direct traffic.

If you're running pay-per-click advertising, it's even more important to track your clicks and where they come from on a regular basis. Small changes can easily lead to large disruptions in your income flow.

In the end, you'll need to decide for yourself which stats you should analyze daily, weekly and monthly according to your own site goals. Once you've decided which are the most important
statistics to track regularly, write down a daily, weekly and monthly to-do list.

Make that plan, stick to it, and you¹ll find yourself infinitely more in touch with your site. You'll think about creating solutions to your challenges more often. And, in all likelihood, you'll find yourself dealing with a more and more successful web site.

About The Author:

Visit Web Analytics Guide
http://www.analyticsguide.com for more valuable insights,
articles and FAQ on web site statistics and analysis.

Internet Marketing - What Comes First?

By Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D.

Someone asked me recently, if I were to expand an existing professional services business onto the internet, what marketing steps would I take first: set up a web site, a shopping cart, a newsletter, or a blog?

This is a very good question. Five years ago most Internet marketing specialists would have all responded in chorus, "A website, of course!" Then they would recommend their services to create an elaborate website with lots of bells and whistles.

I had an interesting email this week from a reader who asked me about website design fees. This is not my area of expertise. But this reader is a very smart guy. Why? Because he knows from my ezines, blogs and web site that I've been online for a few years and making a decent living from it.

He's a rabbi who has many years experience counseling people. He now has made a wise decision to start offering coaching services to people, and wants to leverage the internet to find clients, sell ebooks and other programs.

The First Step - Ask Questions

He has many questions about what to do first, where to invest his marketing dollars, and how to get set up so everything works seamlessly and automatically.

While I don't profess to have all the answers to his particular questions, I want to emphasize what's important here. He is asking questions!

Many people just go with their gut or common sense. It goes something like this:

"I need a way to find people online. Ergo, I need a web site. Who can do a web site for me, that doesn't cost too much? Oh, you can? Only $1000. Okay, that seems reasonable. Do it."

It's only later on down the road when they want to start an ezine, or a blog, or sell an ebook that they realize they need more than just a web site. That's when the web designer kicks in with hourly fees.

I've never heard a programmer say they can't do something. They always say they can easily set up autoresponders, gather email addresses, send out a newsletter, create a blog on your site, and even create a secure payment system for sales. I'm sorry, but here's the real news: programmers and web site designers can do all these tasks with your web site, but they will charge you for it, and it still won't do everything automatically. And you will be tied to their hourly fees (and schedule) forever.

Back to the question asked of me at the beginning of this article.

While my partner and I recommend an all-in-one solution and setting up all the elements together if your budget permits, there are a couple of ways to get started.

Unless you have a database of prospects, you will not sell your services or products. Therefore, we recommend getting started the right way by building your database - by offering an ezine or free content to attract people to your business. And, you need a place on the Internet where people can find you and subscribe to your content.

The first two pieces then, especially if you're just starting out and have a limited budget, are a blog and a shopping cart program with an autoresponder system.

Third Party Shopping Cart Systems

A third party shopping cart system is where you get an account hosted online by a company that specializes in providing automated database management, autoresponders, email broadcasting, online merchant credit card and payments, ad tracking, and affiliate programs.

When you start out, all you need to do is deliver your ezine and automated emails through autoresponders. You can get a basic level shopping cart account. As your business grows and you develop products, you can upgrade to get more features on your shopping cart, such as affiliate program management and digital delivery.

There are many online email broadcasting services to manage your newsletter. But be aware that an all-in-one solution such as a shopping cart program will save you time and money in the long run.

We strongly recommend starting off with a shopping cart program that can manage your database and newsletters under one roof. It is better to have all your automated marketing functions with one service provider, than to separate your database and newsletter out to another external email service provider.

For detailed information and questions to ask about how to pick a shopping cart system, there are a series of articles you can review: http://snipurl.com/Pick_a_Cart

What's next?

You have your shopping cart system, now what? We'll explore the issue of websites vs. blogs in our next article.

About The Author

As the The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman have teamed up to work with professionals to maximize their marketing strategies by implementing blogs, ezines and
ecommerce tactics. They are co-authors of "Secrets of Successful Ezines: A Guide to Writing and Publishing an Ezine that Gets Results." Get The Blog Squad's free report on the "Top 10 Reasons to do an Ezine and A Blog": http://snipurl.com/Ezine_Blog

How to Use Your Articles To Create Ebooks

By Maria Marsala,

Who would have thunk it? You've completed several written articles on the same topic - a good idea if you want to become known as an expert. Now you want to turn those articles into a money making ebook. But how to do it? What's next? What do you need?

You could simply take your articles, jam them into a PDF file, and call it an ebook. However, if you want your ebook to reflect your professional, credible self, and get you "this" much closer to creating a "book", then follow the steps below:

1. Start with a word processing program, such as MS Word.

2. Place all of your articles in an order that will make sense to a reader.

3. Make sure that concepts flow. How? One key step is to remove redundancies that occur because each article was originally free standing.

4. Find ways to connect the first article to the 2nd article. A copywriter or editor can easily do this.

5. Leave lots of white space on each page. At least one-inch right and left margins because it makes the page easier to read.

6. The font size for the text on the page should be at least 11 or 12 points. This is especially true if your ideal clients are over 40 years old. Many people use Arial or Verdana for ebooks since it's easier on the eyes than Times Roman.

7. You want pictures or illustrations scattered throughout the document. However, you don't want to use the clip art that came with your computer. First that art is for personal, not commercial use. Secondly, you want to look professional and not thought of as cheap. There are low cost graphics for sale on the Internet for you to use.

8. Titles and sub-titles should be a much larger font than the text. Don't underline titles because people will think that they're supposed to click on them; instead, use bold, color or italicize them. You can even use special fonts, like Tahoma for titles.

9. By formatting your ebook like a professional, it will be easier for you to turn it into a book! How? Read the next few tips.

10. Create an eye pleasing cover page for the ebook, and a cover that looks like a book cover, for use on your web site. Add pictures within your ezine but remember, you don't own clip art, and you can't use it for monetary gain. Have your designer add graphics that you own.

11. The first few pages after the cover should be numbered with roman numerals. --Page ii is for testimonials from clients and those who have read and used the ebook. --Page iii is your publisher information page with copyright information. Open a book and you'll see this important page! --Page iv can be used for acknowledgments of others that you'd like to mention. --Page v tells others how to use the ebook. --Page vi is an Introduction to the book, written by you or someone else.

12. NOW comes your ebook, and it is numbered, 1, 2, 3 etc. Make sure you include: --Then comes the table of contents which can link to the pages the topics are placed. --Within the ebook be sure and invite readers to visit your web site. --In an appropriate place of your ebook, maybe in the middle, offer a special on a product that the reader of the ebook may enjoy. --Again, to get people to your web site, place additional resources on a page on your site and link from the book to that page. --Create a "Call to Action" on your next to the last page! Again, the goal is to get your readers to your web site. --Don't forget to create an all about you and your company page ... with your picture!

13. Next convert your ebook to PDF format, making sure that all the links in the ebook are clickable.

14. Research shipping cart software or programs to use to sell your product online.

15. Consider creating an affiliate program for your product and let others help you market your product in return for a commission.

Remember that even 8 x 5 1/2 books only need 64 pages to be bound! If your ebook is more than 30 pages in a Word Document, chances are you've also created a book!

Congratulations. You've completed your ebook!

Now, you're ready to price and promote your ebook.

About The Author.

©2006 Maria Marsala. Helping women business owners accelerate profits and improve productivity -- quicker, by providing one-on-one kick-butt, No BS, practical business and marketing coaching, consulting and training. Check out our services and products and save time and maximize your success. Join "No BS Business Advice Ezine" to receive your audio and 2 reports now. www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com

Building Relationships Through Your Sales Copy

Building Relationships Through Your Sales Copy

By Cathy Qazalbash

Whenever you try to sell anything you need to build a relationship with your reader. Few people will buy without this vital connection between you and those reading your sales copy. It doesn't matter what sort of sales copy you are using. It can be a small classified ad or a full-blown Sales page. Unless you can build up this vital relationship with your reader you will make little or no sales.

How do you define a relationship built on merely reading your sales copy? It is the feeling a reader will have about you when reading your ad or sales letter. Your aim with any of your sales copy is to build a good rapport with your reader.

What sort of feelings do you want to create in your reader?

1. Empathy
2. Your product/service can help them resolve their problem
3. Trust
4. Need to buy

A feeling of empathy: Your reader wants to feel that you understand their needs and wants. When you sympathize with your readers' needs they will be able to form a bond, they will be able to say, "yes this person understands what I want and understands the problems I am facing."

Creating a feeling that you can and will help them resolve their problem. Do not just reel off facts and figures. Show your reader positive and strong reasons why your product will help them. In
this way they will feel that you are genuinely interested in solving their problems and really have a product /service that will do this.

Trust is the main ingredient in building a relationship with your potential customer. Sales can be made or lost on this all-important feeling. When people build trust in you and your product/service they will buy.

How do you achieve this?

1. Personalize
2. Empathize
3. Persuade
4. Prove your trustworthiness

Create the need to buy your product

1. State the problem your reader has and emphasize their need to resolve it. Declare your USPS (unique selling position) State what your product/service can do and how it will greatly help your reader solve a problem or satisfy a desire.

More techniques that will help you build a relationship.

1. Use of "trigger words"
2. Presenting your sales copy (this reflects on you as a professional)

"Trigger words" are words that touch your reader's emotions. They make them feel good and be more inclined to buy. for example: Do not just "build your business" "skyrocket your business." You can see one trigger word can make your reader feel elated and optimistic that this can happen. With this feeling in mind a sale is very much more likely, and you have achieved this with one word. When you use these trigger words you will build a good rapport with your prospective buyer, and increase your chances of a sale.

Presentation is critical to the overall impression your visitor will get about you. When your ads and sales pages look good your reader will be impressed and perceive you as a true professional.
First impressions are indeed lasting and if your visitor sees you as a professional they will build a good relationship with you as they read your copy.

So next time you send out an ad however small remember that everything your reader sees in your copy will build a relationship and can make or break your sale. Strive to impress your reader, build a relationship and then close the sale with your stunning ad copy.

About the Author.

Cathy Qazalbash is an experienced freelance writer/copywriter
and publisher of the A-Y-B free marketing newsletter
http://advertise-your-business.com
http://copywriting-for-websites.com
http://a1-newsletters.com

How To Click With Online Advertising

By Mark Vandorone

How To Click With Online Advertising

For a small business competing in a niche market it is becoming ever harder to achieve high rankings in the free search engines. Pay-per-click ("PPC") advertising can be a great alternative.

Learn the secrets of PPC search engines and success on the internet could be yours. Be warned, however, a lack of understanding could put your business on the road to insolvency. I can't emphasize this strongly enough. An understanding of PPC can be a great advantage to your business.

If you've ever attended an auction to bid for a piece of furniture or artwork you'll have some idea of how to advertise on the PPC search engines. In this case you're bidding for high ranked spots on the keywords you've identified for your business. Visitors will arrive at your site by clicking on your search engine advert, and each time that happens you'll pay the search engine the value of your bid. A bid can be as low as 5 cents, but some highly competitive keywords can cost several dollars.

Now I'd like to discuss some advantages and disadvantages of advertising with PPC search engines. Advantages first :-

1. Only when someone clicks on your advert are you required to pay.

2. Can be an inexpensive method of attracting targeted traffic to your site.

3. Outbid the competition and that top advertising spot can be yours, no matter how small your business.

4. Some PPC search engines enable a campaign to be up and away in minutes. Not very long after you could be taking orders.

5. If your advert is not successful you can cancel or amend your listing with immediate effect.

6. You can test your advert, making amendments quickly and simply.

However, be aware of the disadvantages :-

1. Not everyone who clicks on your advert is a potential customer. You will have to pay for these junk clicks though.

2. The cost per click can escalate if you and and your competition become involved in a bidding war over that top spot.

3. Your advert may be subject to a strict review prior to approval. This can delay the start of the campaign considerably, and you may not like the final advert they approve.

4. A poorly worded or, even worse, misleading advert could generate traffic but not make sales. Unless you've placed a restriction on your advertising budget, your business could quickly be on the road to insolvency.

So how do you tip your toe in the water with PPC advertising? Before you do anything else research the keywords that your target market are searching on. You wouldn't want to bid for traffic on an irrelevant keyword would you? The methods for carrying out this research are a fully fledged topic in their own right, which I'll cover in a future article.

Another essential piece of knowledge you require before entering the bidding fray, is the monetary worth of a visitor to your website. By this I mean the average revenue generated by each visitor. This will be your guide to how far you can push it in the bidding process.

If you want to use PPC advertising to test your sales copy on a new site with no visitor knowledge, then monitor your costs versus sales closely. A daily budget is advisable at the outset. Limit your spending to something you can afford to lose if the worst occurs and you don't make any sales. Raise this as appropriate once you can see the sales conversion rate.

You're almost ready to get going. What I've provided here is an overview of PPC advertising. Use this as the first building block in your quest to master the PPC search engines.

Wishing you every success with your online advertising.

About The Author.

Mark Vandorone offers specialized online advertising campaigns at http://www.fivemarketing.com. Not happy with your results from the Pay-Per-Click search engines? Pay Mark a visit at: http://www.fivemarketing.com or contact him by e-mail at:
support@fivemarketing.com

Internet Marketing: Start Right, Start Smart

By Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D.

Internet Marketing: Start Right, Start Smart

When a professional or small business owner decides to launch their business on the Internet, they often start with a website. They've heard that everybody has to have a website. Then they learn that they should have an email newsletter.

Many people start out piece-meal. Website with one company, newsletter delivery with another provider, online payments with another, and as each need arises they get an account with a new provider. In a previous article (http://snipurl.com/Internet_Marketing1), we recommended starting with a shopping cart marketing system. The next step is to establish your online presence.

Website First, Blog First?

As stated above, it wasn't long ago that you would get started with your online business by creating a website. However, after several months and several thousands of dollars you may learn your website isn't enough. You do need a web presence, and there is an alternative to hiring a web designer to do it for you - you can create a blog for your business.

Since the invention of easy-to-use blogging programs, we recommend to many small businesses and professionals to skip a website, and start off with a blog. A blog can do just about anything a website can, and has several big advantages. (A blog actually is a website, only its software provides for easily updated content and reader participation.)

1. A blog is user-friendly. You can learn how to manage it yourself, no need to hire a web designer, pay big fees or be at the mercy of their busy schedule.

2. A blog is inexpensive. An account at Typepad.com, the leading blog provider, runs from $5-$15/month.

3. Blogs are search engine friendly. Even if in the beginning you don't have a clue about how to optimize your site for the search engines, don't worry. Just know that when you are writing about your niche, to your targeted audience, you will be using the very same keywords that get entered into Google when people are searching for things. This will increase your chances of getting found on the 'Net' by the people who want and need you. Websites are a little more complicated and if they aren't updated frequently, they don't get indexed by the search engine spiders very often.

Huh? What's a Spider?

Don't worry about the technological jargon. You don't have to understand how a blog and search engines work right now. But you do have to know that these elements are "must-do's" for anyone who wants to use the Internet to build and grow a business online.

Take some teleseminars - there are plenty and they're often free - or, buy a couple of ebooks that show you how to manage these tasks.

Don't make the mistake of getting overwhelmed by all the possibilities and all the companies trying to sell you their services. Start out slowly, ask questions, gather information, inform yourself about the options and benefits before you even think about setting up your website or blog. While we can't really make recommendations for you without knowing about your business niche, in general, you can't go wrong by setting up a shopping cart and a blog so you can start your business online the smart way. The two go hand in hand. If you want to make money online, you can't have one without the other.

About The Author.

As the The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman have teamed up to work with professionals to maximize their marketing strategies by implementing blogs, ezines and
ecommerce tactics. They are co-authors of "Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide for Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog." Are you ready for a blog? Take The Blog Squad's free assessment at http://snipurl.com/Blog_Assessment

What Do Your Business Emails Reveal About You?

By Tim Knox

I am a huge fan of email. In fact, if you do business with me the bulk of our communication will not be through the telephone, but via email. Email is quick. Email is convenient. Email takes less time than long-winded telephone conversations. Most importantly, email gives me an electronic record of my communications with clients, employees, partners, and vendors; which makes it easy for me to refresh my quickly-aging memory by easily referring back to our electronic conversations.

As someone who receives and sends a couple hundred emails a day I have to tell you that I am constantly amazed at how poorly written and unprofessional most business emails are. I receive
emails every day from fellow entrepreneurs that don't even contain full sentences. They are often rife with spelling and grammatical errors or typed in all capital letters, and sometimes, are virtually illiterate.

One email I recently received from someone trying to sell me an expensive piece of equipment actually read, "tom-- what you think -- ready to buy?" First off, the name is "Tim" and secondly, what I think is: I will take my business elsewhere. Thank you, drive through.

Why should you worry about how your emails are reviewed by their recipients? Because in business, you are constantly being judged by your customers, your employees, your investors, your partners, and your peers. If your emails give the impression that you don't put much thought into the composing of the message or that you're too busy to be bothered or that you are a total idiot who can't even use a spell checker, what do you think that says to the person on the other end?

Email is quickly becoming the business correspondence medium of choice for the reasons I covered above, and if you don't take the time to learn how to effectively use email in a professional manner, it will come back to haunt you.

There are rules that should be followed when sending business emails. The website Email Replies gives 32 tips for email etiquette. Culling from that list and adding a few of my own, here are Tim's Top 10 Rules of Email Etiquette that every entrepreneur, executive, and employee should follow.

Make It Short And Sweet

An email isn't a letter from camp, so don't drone on any longer than necessary. Keep in mind that reading an email on a computer screen is harder than reading printed communications, so keep it brief and to the point.

Use Proper Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation

This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of you and your company, it is also important to make sure your message is not
misconstrued. Emails with improper punctuation (a comma and a period every now and then would be nice) are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the message. And, if your email program has a spell checker do everyone a favor and use it.

Include a Signature Block In Every Email

A signature block in an email is the same as the signature block you would use to end a letter. You should include your name, title, company name and address, telephone number, email address and website address.

Reply Quickly

This is my number one pet peeve: people who take forever to answer email. Fast response is especially important if the email is from a customer or contains time-sensitive information. Customers send an email because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax or talk to your voicemail. Each email should be replied to within at least 24-hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the email can't be answered in full immediately you should at least send a reply saying that you have received their email and that you will get back to them ASAP.

Read Every Email Before You Send It

There's no better way to embarrass yourself than through a hastily sent email. A lot of people don't even bother to read an email before they send it out, as evidenced by the many
spelling and grammatical errors most emails contain. Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.

Do Not Discuss Confidential Information

Sending an email is like sending a postcard. Once it leaves your computer, the end user can do whatever they want with it, so if you do not want a documented record of your comments or the information shared with others, don't send it. Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in emails, even if they are meant to be a joke. There have been court cases where email correspondence was used as evidence. That's a road you do not want to go down.

Don't Use ALL CAPS

In email terms, IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING, so please tone it down. ALL CAPS are hard to read and can trigger an angry reply if the recipient mistakes the intention of your email. Emails should be written in standard sentence style. Turn the Caps Lock off and back away from the keyboard.

Avoid Abbreviations and Emoticons

In business emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business emails these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-) and his depressed pal :-( . If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what an acronym means, it is better not to use it.

Don't Use Backgrounds or Silly Graphics

I actually received an email from a fellow entrepreneur that had an animated smiley face waving a gloved hand in his signature block. If the email had come from Walt Disney I wouldn't have been shocked. Coming from a small technology company, I had to wince. Not much to smile about there. Remember That Email Is A Formal Business Communication

You wouldn't send a formal letter to a customer that lacked a salutation, a well-thought out body of text, and a signature. You should use email in the same manner. A proper business email should be structured like a short letter. It should have a salutation, the body of the message, a sign off, and a signature.

Next time we'll discuss email issues that should be a concern to larger companies. If your company doesn't have a formal email policy, you should. Tune in next week to find out why.

Here's to your success,

About The Author:

Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker
http://www.prosperityandprofit.com
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.timknox.com

Achieve Indepencence Through Web Lead Generation

By Trevor Marshall

Before setting up anything, it is important that you understand the high relevance of lead generation to your business' success. It is highly important for you to be able to find ways for lead generation because without lead generation, your business will really suffer. Leads potentially lead to shoppers, and shoppers potentially lead to sales and profits. Thus, with no leads, you can have no shoppers, and so forth.

1. Business Breeds Business

A poor quality of lead generation will end up costing you a lot of wasted time and money. The initial impression people have about your business is very important. And if people hear that many of their friends are shopping somewhere, they are likely to try shopping there also. Take command of your company's lead generation - never leave the sales of your business as well as its growth, efficiency, and image, to fate.

2. Growth Is More Important Than Profits

You always need to supervise your company's lead generation so that you won't be left in the dark when it comes to your company's growth (or lack of it). If you are now interested in taking command of your company's lead generation, here are some simple tricks of the trade.

3. Use The Internet

Since hundreds of millions of people are logged on to the internet every single day, whether they are looking for something specific or just browsing around, it is highly important that you are able to bypass all the lead brokers as well as the other competition on the internet and just directly connect to your desired customers straight to a company's web site. You MUST have a website. In this day and age, your customers not only expect it, they demand it.

4. Lead Generation

Choose a lead generation that you can efficiently control and which is highly dependable. Make sure that your lead generation system is cost effective and specifically targeted to internet lead generation. Start getting off the lead generation habit of merely doing internet sales leads. It is advisable for your company to be able to develop a type of lead generation program where you will be able to cut out the middleman. You will not only be able to increase your company's lead generation but it can also improve the quality of your company's internet lead generation wherein you will be able to cut your costs per lead.

It is important to note that being able to create an effective internet sales lead generation system or program comprises of being highly sensitive of what you prospective clients want such as the right keywords or phrases that prospective clients usually use in the internet search engines. It is to the client's advantage that he or she will be able to choose the right keyword or key phrase (the ones that are most likely to be used by their prospective clients) because the whole point of lead generation is to basically be able to gain as much exposure over the net as possible as well as being able to provide all relevant information to their prospective clients.

About The Author:

For more great lead generation related articles and resources check out
http://leads.salesnmarketinghq.com

Setting Up An Art Affiliate Site - Part 3

By Jeremy Zongker

The phrase "If you build it they will come" definitely does not pertain to websites. Getting visitors to your site is easy; doing it in a way that is profitable is very difficult and takes a lot of work. This is the most difficult and most critical phase to operating a profitable art affiliate site or any website for that matter. There's no magic formula to follow, but in the sections below you'll find some key pieces of advice that will greatly increase your odds of succeeding.

Step 8 - Monitoring Your Traffic

This is very important. Random odds dictates in part the number of sales you make, so if you do not monitor your traffic you will have no idea how well your efforts in getting traffic to your site are working. Your stats can provide a lot of valuable information such as how many visitors come to your site each day, how many pages they view, how long they spend on each page, where they came from, what path they followed from your site, etc. You can use this information to make changes to your site to help improve your traffic.

The good news is your host most likely provides a free utility for monitoring your stats, but you may have to turn on the stats monitoring or request that your host do this for you. If your host does not provide a tool for doing this or the tool they provide doesn't provide much information then you can visit StatCounter for a free one.

Step 9 - Build Links

To be successful it's important to have a fair percentage of your traffic to be "free traffic". The primary source of this free traffic is going to be from search engines and other sites. We already discussed how to optimize your pages to increase your search engine ranking, but that's only half the equation the other half is links to your site.

To get links to your site the easiest way to start is by submitting to directories. There are hundreds if not thousands of these directories that will accept your website for free. It's important when you submit to these directories or do any link building that you use your keywords as the link text such as Tropical Art. This helps your rankings by having other sites
affirm that your site is about the keywords you selected.

This is work is something anyone can do but is also time consuming. If you don't have the time, once again you can use a site such as RentACoder to hire someone to do this for you. Let me just point out two things you do not need to do and shouldn't do. The first is submit to search engines. Once you have some other sites linking to yours they will find it, and you're better off if they find it on their own instead of you having to tell them about your site. The second is submitting to link farms or free for all (FFA) sites. This will gain you nothing and is a waste of time and money.

Step 10 - Pay for Traffic

Some directories such as Yahoo Directory and other websites require you to pay for inclusion. Some are worth it, others are not. It's going to be up to you to decide. One benefit of paying for this type of traffic versus pay per click is it will also help your sites ranking by providing you with extra back links.

Another option is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) programs such as Google Adwords. With these programs you pay for each visitor that comes to your site. This can be a great way to gain traffic but you also have to be careful with it in order to be profitable. What you need to know is how much you earn per average user. For example if last month you had 500 visitors and made $75 in commission, then on average each visitor made you $0.15. Knowing that you can bid below $0.15 per click and will most likely make a profit on the visitors referred to you from the PPC program.

Step 11 - Wait, Analyze and Revise

It takes time to get your site to rank with search engines. Usually you'll be able to find first on MSN within weeks, then Yahoo within a few months and finally Google possibly up to a year or more later. At the time of writing this MSN gets about 5% of search traffic, Yahoo gets about 15% and Google gets a whopping 75%. Your traffic will come in phases and it will take a long time to see the large payoffs.

Each month you need to analyze your stats again and determine what adjustments need to be made. You may need to increase or decrease how much you are paying per click on PPC sites, adjust your site layout to get more visitors to purchase or perform more link building to improve your sites rank. Just keep with it, continue to read and learn more and not give up and eventually your efforts will pay off. Good luck with your site!

About The Author:

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