Thursday 30 October 2008

Traffic From Article Marketing

What is Article Marketing? Article Marketing is the process of writing a 400-1000 word article that is keyword rich and yet not too spammy. The power of article marketing is in the "About the Author" section. In this section you may include up to 2 links to your website, minisite, blog, etc. These links may have a keyword rich anchor and are DoFollow (most of the time). Each domain that you are promoting should have about 40+ articles (if you're trying to get the highest serp possible. 40 articles is a lot of writing no matter how ya swing it, but I've found that reviewing a product is probably the easiest way to go.

Imagine that you write an article and it gets submitted to 500 article directories (some with high PR and link juice). Those 500 sites now link to you with a very relevant keyword anchor. This brings you valuable free traffic in two ways:

1. The more backlinks you have, the higher your site will position on the search engines (serps).
2. A quality article brings you "the author" visits to your blog from the links included in the about the author section.

Submitting Articles the Easy Way
If you're serious about Article Marketing you'll want to have your articles submitted automatically to article directories for you (time is money). I've used three services for this.

The first (and best) would be Article Marketer. Article Marketer is a subscription based service (it costs $50.00 / Quarter or $160 per year) for unlimited article submissions to 5000 + article directories. Article Marketer reviews your article in 1-2 days (other services can take up to 15 days) and informs you of any potential issues with your article before distribution begins. Article Marketer will not distribute your article until it meets certain criteria. Article Marketer provides you with distribution and exposure reports as well, which are really nice because you want to see what you're paying for frankly.

The second one is called iSnare. iSnare.com will register you at about 500 directories and automatically submit your article to them automatically for 2 dollars per article. iSnare takes about 5 days to review your article and is not as thorough as Article Marketer. As long as your article has 400 words they'll push it out. That may sound good, but it isn't. Article Directories are fraught with many rules and it's really important that your article be universally acceptable for maximum exposure.

Finally, the third Article Submission tool is DigiXMAS Article Submitter. This is a free article submission tool that submits your article to hundreds of low pr/ranking article directories. DigiXmass Article Submitter is a semi-automatic process and requires several manual steps, but it is a free solution.

Is Article Marketing Worth it?
You bet it is! Nothing is better than getting 1 way backlinks to your site with relevant link anchors. These one way text links can rocket your site towards the top of the SERPS, especially if your topic or niche is under one million results.

A Seo Services Company Is Responsible For Creating Traffic

A SEO services company is responsible for creating traffic and ranking in one's website. They are also responsible in monitoring and making sure that the traffic and ranking is maintained for a period of time. Because of this, there are a lot of new SEO companies that are trying to create name in the industry. Most of them are really true and hard working but there are also those who just wanted to scam and earn money from other people.

The use of Internet is spreading fast all over the world. Almost all transactions are now being made over the Internet and so a lot of businesses have started to create their websites. They find large traffic with Internet users. Some even say that it is cheaper to market and create advertisements over the Internet than in other forms of media. In order to achieve the traffic, the website owners look for the help of SEO companies. The SEO company provides the right elements to make your website attractive to your target audience. It uses several tools to catch the attention of people and to check the products and services that you are offering on your site.

The price for the services of a SEO company is competitive. It can give any website owner a run for their money. Once you find the right SEO Company for you, you are sure that the price you paid for is compensated. But what if you were able to get the services of a fake or scam SEO Company?

In order to prevent this thing to happen, you should be cautious in looking for the needed SEO Company. There are some tips that you can consider before grabbing the first SEO Company that offers you their services.

1. Avoid getting SEO companies that send their advertisements through scam emails. If an SEO company sent you an email informing you of the services that they offer, then do some research about them. This is the initial tactic of scam companies. More reliable SEO companies do not need to advertise themselves because their clients speak for them. Satisfied clients will truly be too happy to share to others the services that they received from their SEO Company. They will surely refer them to friends and acquaintances that need their services as well. It is better to inquire from SEO Company that is referred to you than from those that you just received emails from.

2. Do not bite to the SEO Company's promise of achieving high rank immediately after you acquired their services. This is indeed an appealing offer but you should watch out. It is not easy to achieve a number 1 rank in the span of two-weeks or less. It requires a lot of talent to achieve this goal. You can expect to gain a high rank with the help of the SEO Company but it requires time to achieve it. It is better to go for the low but continuously moving up rank rather than the fast high rank but done in illegal manner.

Most of the SEO Company that offers this tactic is scammer because they are using the black hat tactics to get their preferred rank. These SEO Company also tend to use "cloaking" approach that can cause you to be penalized and removed from major search engines once they have found out about it.

3. The relatively low price compared with the high promises that they offer. The work done by the SEO Company is tedious so they need to be compensated for it. No matter how good they are in the service, they still need to ask for a competitive price for the work that they are willing to offer. In fact, more famous SEO company tends to collect higher fees because they are already aware of the hard work that they will do to make website a better place for traffic. But there are instances when new SEO Company can offer low price since they are still starting and wanted to make name and referral from clients. You can opt for their services but be wary that you have to face the risk of taking it.

4. Investigate and go for SEO company base on referrals and record. If the SEO company claims a site that they worked with, check for their codes or logo on the specified site. If you cannot find one, you can always inquire from them to prove that they are indeed clients of your prospective SEO Company.

Looking for scammers is not easy but if you are determined to find a good SEO services company, there's always a better option for you to locate one.

legitimate home based business

I feel it important to mention that a legitimate home based business is not necessarily a means to get rich quick. This business is the answer for you to really improve your life. There is obviously a concern, so the key to finding a legitimate home based business is research.

Your business is there to give you the online opportunity that you need to make full use of your time and give you the time to do what you want. A legitimate home business is different from the online get-rich-quick scams. It does not lure people by an offer to earn lump some amounts overnight, or doing simple tasks in a minimal amount of time from the comfort of one’s own home.

If you're planning to start one, and have to choose between several proposals. First of all make sure that all the ideas are for a legitimate home based businesses. So, how do you find a legitimate home based business in an ocean of fraudulent schemes. You should turn to for guidance on legitimate home business programs.

Legitimate home based business offers the best business that you can find and it is a business that you can be proud of. A legitimate businesses is just what you need to escape the rat race that a corporate life offers you.

Even though you may be impatient to start your home-based business today, it is better to take finding a legitimate business one step at a time. Never start a home-based business hoping for overnight success and profit.

Use your common sense and know that you will most likely not start making real money until your second year of business. This will provide you with more time to focus on making your legitimate home based business successful, which is the primary reason for starting this opportunity in the first place.

Easy cash generation with a legitimate home based business is the perfect secondary retirement income system. For one thing, if everyone involved could make this kind of easy money, don’t you think everyone you know would quit their jobs and work from home with their home business?

Legitimate and honest home-based business that combines a website, offers support and multiple streams of income into one great turn-key business. Can you imagine data entry made easy working from home and filling out very brief and incredibly simple web forms for quick and easy cash? If you are a home-based business opportunity seeker then look no further because this is the most profitable home business designed to have you making easy daily cash.

Hands down, this is simply the best, fastest and most affordable way to earn easy daily cash, working from home, better than any other program today. Take advantage of daily cash and get the profitable online business you want to obtain the money you need.

Remember a legitimate home based business is all you need to earn residual income. For a business offering comprehensive online business marketing, a legitimate home based business is surprisingly affordable to get into.

Legitimate home-based businesses are allowing ordinary families to make extraordinary incomes and at a fast pace. A legitimate home based business is just what you need to turn your dreams into reality.

Starting a business from home is a viable option

Starting a business from home is a viable option. Doing business from home is a lot simpler than it used to be.

A home business is an affordable way to create multiple streams of income. Starting a business from home is a great way to ease into your new business.

A home business is a good way to test the entrepreneurial waters while saving lots of money on overhead such as rent, utilities, insurance and more. The desire to start a home business is the present-day trend in most Western Economies and in certain other parts of the world too.

Check out home business opportunities on Internet search engines to get some ideas. There are endless ideas to start a home-based business.

The best way to research home business ideas is to speak with others who have been in your position before. Forums provide an essential platform for like minded people to network and draw on the vast amount of constantly changing business building ideas, knowledge and information available.

We have the great opportunity to keep up-to-date by joining a variety of good active forums that are related to internet marketing, online home business, SEO and internet business building ideas and have an experienced, solid and knowledgeable membership. There are plenty of home-based business ideas to choose from depending on your hobbies, interests and experiences.

Running a business from home is the dream of many, and it definitely has its advantages.

Running your own home business is supposed to be a fun and rewarding experience that will make your life better.

Running a business from home also has its disadvantages. Your own home-based business is an entirely different ball game from your office work.

A business from your home requires a lot of discipline. It is still business and you will need a place where you can work comfortably.

When you work at home, managing your time is key to running a successful business. To be successful , you need to know if you are good at setting priorities and if you are able to get yourself away from what is exciting to what is important.

Research and use common sense when considering ANY work at home opportunity. Select a product or service you like and research the company you want to represent.

In researching the type of business you would love to start, make a series of lists of what you are interested in and see what you are good at. The main reasons that businesses fail are lack of research to make sure people want to buy what you are selling, and then second is the lack of marketing focus. But unless you do some market research, you will not know whether or not your market is already saturated.

Too many people are being scammed everyday out of their hard earned money that they are so desperately trying to earn more. This is because they are to eager to start working from home and do not do their research first. It is a matter of researching and taking stock of what you know, what you have and what you intend to put up for a business venture.

Starting a business from home is simple and has never been better. It is not a simple thing to do. Make sure you have mentor to guide you step by step through the process.

One of the biggest myths about starting a business from home is that it will be easier to work for yourself rather than someone else. However, the biggest advantage of running a home business is the mere fact that if you need to complete a project on a tight deadline, you can still work late in the evening or early in the morning WITHOUT leaving your house.

Starting and growing a home-based business is enabling thousands of families to be together, work together and share the financial rewards.

one way of maximizing your Adsense earnings

Most webmasters know that Adsense generates a sizeable source of additional advertising income. That is why most of them use it to go after high paying keywords. They have with them the lists that tells what the keywords are and have already used various methods of identifying them. And yet, after putting up these supposed-to-be high paying keywords into their pages, the money they expected to come rolling in is not really coming in.

What is it that they are doing wrong?

Having the pages is with the proper keywords is one thing. But driving visitors to those pages is another matter and often the factor that is lacking.

The thing is, to get visitors to your high paying keyword pages, you need to optimize your site navigation.

Stop for a moment and think about how visitors are using your website. After a visitor has landed on a certain page, they have the tendency to click on another page that sounds interesting. They get there because of the other links that appears on a page that they initially landed on. This is site navigation. It is all about enabling visitors to move about your site. And one way of maximizing your Adsense earnings.

A typical website have menu links on each page. The wording on these links is what grabs a visitor’s attention and gets them to click on one of the links that will take them to another page of that website. Links that have “free’ or “download� are oftentimes good attention-grabbers.

This navigation logic can also be applied to driving traffic to your high paying pages. There are some websites that are getting a lot of traffic from search engines, but have low earnings. The trick is to try and use come cleverly labeled links to get the visitors off that pages and navigate them to the higher earning ones. This is one great way of turning real cheap clicks to real dollars.

Before you begin testing if this same style will work for you and you website, you need to have two things. Something to track and compare and some high earning pages you want to funnel your site traffic to. An option is to select a few of your frequently visited pages. This is ensuring fast result to come by.

Now, the next thing to do is think of ways to get visitors viewing a particular page to try and click on the link that will take them to your high earning pages. Come up with a catchy description for that link. Come up with a catchy and unique description for the link. Think of something that people do not get to see everyday. That will trigger their curiosity enough to try and see what that was all about.

You can also use graphics to grab your readers’ attention. There is no limitation to what you can do to make your link noticeable. If you are after the success of your site, you will do everything it takes just to achieve that goal. Just be creative. As far as many Adsense advertisers are concerned, there are no written and unwritten laws to follow regarding what they write. Just as long as you do not overstep the guidelines of the search engines, then go for it.

Also remember that it is all about location, location and location. Once the perfect attention grabbing description has been achieved, you have to identify the perfect spot on your page to position that descriptive link to your high paying page.

There is nothing wrong with visiting other websites to see how they are going about maximizing their site navigation. “Hot pages� or “Most read� lists are very common and overly used already. Get to know the ones that many websites are using and do not try to imitate them.

Another way of doing it is to try and use different texts on different pages. That way you will see the ones that work and what does not. Try to mix things around also. Put links on top and sometimes on the bottom too. This is how you go about testing which ones get more clicks and which ones are being ignored.

Let the testing begin. Testing and tracking until you find the site navigation style that works best for you site.

Saturday 25 October 2008

how to avoid scams on eBay

If you do not know how to identify fraudulent auctions then you will be a victim. The only question is when.

Over 44% of all Internet fraud complaints are about auctions according to the FBI's joint Internet crime center. What is even worse is that according to Michael Ford, President of Elite Minds and eBay safety expert, "…almost every one of these complaints could have been avoided. Yes, I am saying that almost every fraudulent eBay auction can be avoided."

The biggest problem new members on eBay face is a lack of information. They are able to join and be scammed in under 20 minutes without realizing it. New members do not know how the system works and professional criminals take advantage of this by leading them into well planned con games where the new member loses their money and possibly becomes a victim of identity theft.

New members should never:

1. Pay by a means that does not have buyer protection.
2. Focus on a great bargain while losing touch with reality.
3. Click links or run Trojan programs sent by email.
4. Bid without knowing how to check a seller's history
5. Join eBay and immediately try to buy or sell anything.

New members frequently do not have a PayPal account to make payments and they may actually prefer to deal with someone who requests payment by check or money order because those are payment methods they understand. PayPal and Credit Cards give the most buyer protection. Scammers often request payments by Western Union, Bank Transfer, check or money order because they can run off with the money and never ship anything. New members should only pay by PayPal or Credit Card.

New members join eBay and find a great deal on something they want. Then they are afraid of losing that great bargain. The fear of loss takes over and they will do foolish things that they would never normally do to avoid losing their perceived bargain. Criminals often sell items just to obtain information from buyers. The crooks offer items they may not even have and then use the auction as an excuse to collect information from the buyer including name, address, credit card number, and even social security number. You should never have to give any information to a seller other than your name and address so they can ship your goods.

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Criminals often list popular items like vehicles, electronics, and laptops at too-good-to-be-true prices hoping to snare new members who do not know better. Never focus on a good deal ahead of good judgment.

Crooks prey on fear and confusion. They will send fake email messages claiming your eBay or PayPal account has been compromised or there is some other problem and you must click a link to login. The link then takes the unwary member to a spoof or look-alike website that looks like eBay or PayPal but was actually setup by the crook. When the member enters their password, the crook then logs into their account to abuse it. Scammers will also send programs containing Trojan software which they claim is a form that must be filled out before the order is shipped. When the buyer runs the software, the criminal can take remote control of their computer and use it to send spam or steal the person's password.

Neither new members or experienced members, should ever click any link in any email no matter where the email appears to be from.

Free software can prevent account hijacking. There is a free toolbar at MyLittleMole.com which will alert you if you are tricked into going to a look-alike eBay, PayPal, banking, or most other websites. It will also warn you if you go to any of thousands of known fraud or spam websites. If every eBay member used this software, account hijacking would be a thing of the past.
New buyers do not understand what the feedback numbers mean. Even experienced members rarely know how to truly read feedback and assume that a positive feedback rating is good. It is often not good. The Auction Inquisitor Auction Analysis software from AuctionInquisitor.com will analyze auctions and seller feedback to report common signs of fraud in an auction. This software allows eBay members to spot fraudulent auctions before they bid.

By far, the biggest problem new members face is immediately trying to buy or sell. They act before they understand how bids work or how payments are made. New users and even users who believe they are experienced need more education than they have in order to trade safely on eBay.

It is possible to buy and sell safely on eBay but only if you know how scams work so you can avoid them.

You can find more information on how to avoid scams on eBay at Auction-Safety.org

Who Else Wants To Make Money With Adsense?

This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Adsense. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Adsense.

If your Adsense facts are out-of-date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? Make certain you don't let important Adsense information slip by you.

Who Else Wants To Make Money With Adsense?

Fact number 1: Kids in high school are making thousands of dollars every month with Adsense.

Fact number 2: Housewives, retirees, mom and dads, who are just staying at home and have never made a dime on the internet have created full-time incomes by simply placing Adsense ads on their web site or blog.

These are just some of the “super Adsense earners”. You may have already heard about their story for they are among the few who are on their way to making millions worth of cash just by promoting Adsense sites.

Anyone, any age and gender can become money generating Adsense publishers as long as they what it takes. How does one go about this Internet advertising?

Writing articles for Adsense is the way to do it. Using the right keywords in your articles and having Google ads on a certain site has become the most profitable way of marketing that anybody can get into. No experience and level of education needed. If you are not using this strategy, or may not be aware of it in the first place, chances are you may be losing thousands of dollars worth of extra income and still do not know it yet.

This is one of the many reasons why writing original quality content articles is now the latest in marketing buzz. Content and links. When combined together becomes a really powerful tool to a successful web site and richer individuals. Many internet marketing professionals are already aware of the value of an original quality content and how using keywords can drive targeted traffic into their sites from the search engines.

So why don’t all these web site owners write and submit their own articles if that is what is important?

The simple and understandable answer is that it takes time to write articles, submit them and get targeted traffic to their websites.
To get into the Adsense marketing business and start earning some good cash, ask yourself. Did you enjoy writing when you were in school? If you answer yes to this question, you already have an initial advantage over most internets marketing business owners that wants to make money online and doing it at home.

With the boom in the Adsense market comes the need for sites to want fresh, quality and original keyword rich content. This way, web site owners can have a steady supply of articles with the proper keywords that they relate to their site contents. The result of this is seen in the sites page rank when indexed by the search engines. Which, in turn, gets moreAdsense ads to show above, below or next to the article on their website with targeted traffic?

What do people have to do?

Write quality and original content, keyword or phrase rich articles with links to your website in the resource box. Then build a website or web page with targeted keyword or phrase rich original content for the targeted traffic that originates from the articles you wrote. Finally, you will have a Google Adsense ads that are targeted to your keyword or phrase rich original content site where visitors will get to visit when they come looking for information.

A win-win situation if you think more about it. A favor for persons looking for quality content and information. For the persons writing the original content articles. And the person with the quality original content rich website. Of course, the search engines and its advertisers are getting targeted traffic and sales but so what? As long as you are getting something in your favor, it does not really matter what the others are getting for themselves.

So who else wants to start earning money with Adsense. Internet marketing has many opportunities wide open for this people. Writing articles and using Adsense for your kind of internet marketing strategy is one sure way of getting a piece of that action and cash.

So now you know a little bit about Adsense. Even if you don't know everything, you've done something worthwhile: you've expanded your knowledge.

The solution for making money

The solution for most people, looking for ways to make money, is to earn on internet. There are many ways to make money on the internet, and it can be a very challenging task, to the inexperienced individual. In this article, we will have a closer look at how to cash in on a good online business opportunity with the use of a Owner Website's.

Earn on internet. Easy to say. But it still remains the number one solution for most people, who are looking for a way to increase their income. To either become financially independent, or to boost their current income, for whatever reason.

There are many ways to make easy money on the internet. The owning and developing of a good quality "how to website" which offers good value to the reader, both in information and products, must be very high on the list for anyone wanting to earn on the internet.

There are various options open to you to have your own website. Let us take a closer look at some of the options available.

Firstly, once you have decided on the type of products or services you wish to offer. You can make your own website. This is not a easy task for someone who has little or no experience in this field. But, there are a lot of free website building software programs available on the internet, that can be used to make the task easier.

The second option is to take advantage of the many mass produced, free, paid or subscription based websites that are available. I am going to concentrate on these options in the hope that I could save you the agony of wasted money, time and effort.

There are literally thousand of Free websites for you to choose from. Just do a search for "free website", and you will see what I mean. Which is exactly the main problem with the free sites. You will need to compete with all of them to try and scratch out a living.

Why are they free? you may ask. In most cases, you become one of hundreds of subscribers on the list of the website creator. You are then continually bombarded with products and services that promise some or other "secret" to overnight riches. Enough said.

Websites that you can buy, are normally of a better quality, and of a higher standard. Most of them are one-page sites, that do offer some value to the visitor. But they also have the similar disadvantage, in that there are so many of them. In most cases, they also offer the opportunity to earn commission on the selling of these sites to other investors like you.

Think about it for a second. You buy the site. You then have to compete with all the other identical sites out there to get customers to your site. Mostly it would have to be paid traffic. You manage to sell a website or two. More competition! You do not have to be a rocket scientist to see that the only person who is winning in this deal is the creator of the website.

Then there is the most popular. The subscription based website that offers you multi-steams of income. Normally, you will have to be a paid subscriber to all the programs behind these many streams, to earn any commissions. So you have in fact not only subscribed to the website creator. But also to all the other programs as well. This can be very costly monthly investment, and it could take months, before you have a single dime return to show for it.

The main dissadvantage of these types of subscription websites, is that, in most cases, the site is a one-page site. With links leading to all the products or services you, as well as all the other subscriber's, are offering. But with no or very little real informative value to the visitor, barring the products on offer.

A large number of these Websites are no more than a Sub-domain site of the creator's main website. Result, you cannot modify or personalize your site. Because of this, your site is identical to the sites of all the other unlimited subscribers. This fact does not rank very highly with Google, and most of the other search engines as well. Who do not look kindly upon duplicate content websites. This in turn means that the main method you would need to use to get traffic to the site, is paid traffic, which can be very costly exercise.

Now, I am not saying that all subscription or paid sites are bad. Don't get me wrong. There are some that are really very good value for money. What I am saying is that for your own protection. You need to investigate as many as possible. And ensure that you get the best deal with the greatest possibility of generating the income you want.

When researching these opportunities, there are a few important questions you should ask: Are subscriptions limited? If so, then you have less competition. Can you modify or change all the aspects of the site? If so, you can break away from duplicate content. This in turn would result in more favorable search engine results. And finally. Can you add and remove products as you choose? If so. You will be able to take advantage of the best products on the market, leading to a greater return on your investment.

In this article I have covered only a few of the factors that you need to keep in mind when opting for you own Website. It is my sincere hope that going forward. You will be better armed when considering these options. And, that you will then be in a more favorable position to earn on the internet.

How Do Membership Sites Generate Income?

Membership sites can generate income in many ways. They generate income from membership fees, ad space, sale of products, by developing proprietary technology and then selling it or charge a fee to the membership to use it, and marketing services and products to the membership. The successful membership site owner will recognize a need within the membership and fill it thus successfully making lots of money.

Is a membership site right for you and can you make good money with the site?

Individuals who run successful membership sites know how to keep site members coming back, stay in contact with members, send special offers to the membership to add to sales, knows how to give incentives like coupons, and discounts to encourage spending and also knows how to sell advertising on the site to others as another source of revenue.

Memberships generate income to site owners because the site can enhance a current business or service, encourage customer loyalty.

Any business is all about making money and membership sites can make any business more profitable when a membership site is connected to it. Membership sites can generate multiple streams of income once a base membership is established by selling affiliate products, money from AdSense and other ad sales. Ultimately the site can even be sold for a profit down the line such as the recent sale of YouTube.

Anyone can set up a membership site and begin to generate multiple streams of income from the sale of the subscriptions to the sites, to products and services, to teleseminars and coaching. There are many possibilities and the sky is really the limit when it comes to the income generating potential of membership sites. When you have a membership site you have a ready audience for the marketing of any future products or services. Your membership will come to trust you and to be eager for your next product or service. With every resource, every time you offer fresh content you are building up the seeds for future sales from your members. Members will also begin a cycle of saying yes to your offers to the point that they will eagerly be waiting for your next offer.

A membership site is right for you if you have a current business, or profession and want a platform to sell to of responsive individuals eager for your next offering.

Membership sites generate income from within the membership, from outside advertisers, from the subscriptions, and from the sale of additional products and services sold to the membership. Membership sites often have several different tiers of membership with each advancing tier being of higher value and higher subscription rate. A member may join at the free level become involved with the site, enjoying the free benefits and learning how valuable the site is and is exposed to the higher levels of content that are available only to those who pay the higher fees. The member will eventually decide to pay for the next tier, and then a higher tier after that. The site owner will receive income from the same member multiple times.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article writing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'
Download it free here: Secrets of Article Writing
Do you want to learn how to build a big online subscriber list fast? Click here: Secrets of List Building
Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 9034 articles in print and 14 published ebooks.

Avoid Losing Money When You Try to Make Money Online

So you have discovered that it is possible to use the potential of the internet to earn you an extra income. No doubt you may already have looked at some of the programs on the internet to help you pay off your debt, to get to the dream of working from home or just the challenge of building your own business online? Like most people starting out on this mission, you probably would already have drowned in all the info and work from home offers from everywhere; all of them promising you a path to financial freedom and to live a debt free life.

How much of this is really true?

In researching the different business opportunities and work from home programs I have been rapped on the knuckles by quite a few program owners already. This is after asking a few simple constructive questions about their offers. One of the recent ones that I joined early this year offered software that would make you $10000 and more in as little as 20 minutes of work per day. Can you believe that? Unfortunately quite a few people fell for it. When questioning the owner directly about this I was promptly banned and my account closed. Yet the forum is full of people paying subscriptions each month to make this guy richer and not a single one of them have even broken even yet after 2 months. After voicing questions in the forum the owners ran a mile instead of answering them honestly. This is the typical response from many programs offering instant riches.

The rich online 'GURUS' as everyone calls them, use expensive copywriters and professionals to write these sales letters and marketing tactics that look very inviting! It is this, which tempts people to spend hard earned money on useless info products while they smile all the way to the bank. They do not care about your frustration. Genuine helpful internet millionaires are few and far between. Others are not telling you the truth because that way you end up being their competition.

Avoid business opportunities that promise Instant Riches!

If you are a big enough sucker to lose money by joining outlandish offers of earning $100s in minutes like is written in these fancy sales letters, then you surely deserve to lose your hard earned cash!

Make no mistake; the internet can make you very wealthy in a very short period of time. Getting involved in a new program that is just launched always has enormous potential especially for those that are sensible enough to grab it. Those risk takers are the ones that get to the top and do not need to purse any alternatives. Before you join however, check the credentials of the testimonials and the owners if possible which is not easy. If you do get a prompt response to a support letter, then that should give you peace of mind at least. In addition the majority of legitimate programs answer your questions up front in their sales page so that you know exactly what you are investing in.

Making Money online is Still a Step By Step Process

It does not matter what business opportunity, work from home program or home base business you join or what niche it is related to. Making money online is the same step by step process just like it is for a conventional business. Where people go wrong is the fact that they want a simple easy solution or a free ride to instant money. Initially the setting up and lying the foundation of your business opportunity or work from home program is where the real work lies and it may even take a little investment on your part. Some business opportunities may ask for a monthly subscription. These are relatively legitimate because they come with all the bells and whistles and the resultant earnings if you run your business properly make the subscription is a drop in the bucket.

Many of the rich people that have made their fortunes online tell you that you can make money on autopilot. This is certainly true but you have to do the legwork first. Will you stay the course? If not; you will never achieve success because all businesses no matter what need to grow from a foundation.

Monday 20 October 2008

Best Way to Make Money Online Using Free Traffic Methods

Are you looking for the best way to make money online using free traffic methods? If you are new to your online venture and are scared of overspending on your marketing efforts; then you will definitely want to read this article in its entirety. We will take the time to discuss the best way to make money online using free traffic methods.

If you were to start an offline business then you know that there is no way to really begin your business without spending money; whether it is your own money or someone else's money. However the beauty of internet marketing anyone can begin making money online; even if you do not have a lot of start up capitol. So what is the best way to make money online if you do not know a lot about marketing or using the internet to begin making money?

Affiliate marketing is the best way for any newbie to begin making money online. You do not have to have your own site or product. There are many affiliate networks you can join to begin promoting other people's products. So what is an affiliate network you ask? It is a market place that has thousands of products in several different niches that you can browse and literally begin making money today. However when you begin browsing these sites you want to know what people are willing to spend money on. Otherwise you can spend a lot time putting effort into something that does not work.

Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate networks that people join. They keep track of all your sales for you and will even give you statistics of what people are willing to spend their money on. I highly recommend it for anyone who is just beginning. You can begin getting biweekly checks from them whenever your commissions reach $25; so the pay out is extremely low.

If you can get enough traffic to the sales page that the affiliate program provides you can begin making sales today. This is the most important part of any business; whether it is an online business or offline business. Without any customers you can forget about making money in any venture.

However when you are first beginning I highly recommend not spending too much money on your marketing efforts; as it can be a huge learning curve and not many people understand how to really use PPC (pay per click.)

If you are looking for the best way to make money online using free traffic methods; visit our site below. Yes you will still need a little bit of start up capitol; however I can guarantee that in just 30 days you will begin getting commission checks from Clickbank. If you are willing to follow a proven system that will take you step by step on how to succeed online with an affiliate program. The best way to begin making money is to follow someone who had success in the area you are looking to have success in!

Easy Ways to Make Money Using Paypal

Paypal has been a very popular place for people looking to make money online. In this article you will find 5 easy ways to make money using paypal. These are all techniques both newbies and veterans use and even if you have no experience at making money online, there are many options and all you have to do is try them! Hopefully these 5 ways to make money using paypal will help you get started!

Before we get to the techniques though, it is important that you set up a paypal account. once you're done with that, these 5 different ways to make money all offer great benefits:

1. E-bay:

E-bay is one of the largest online stores in the world where anyone can sell anything. All you have to do here is set up an e-bay account and sell anything you'd like. Whether it be one of your old props you don't want anymore or if you have some collectible item that is of value, E-bay is quite possibly the best place to sell it because you can auction it and find some really good buyers! The set up is very easy and you will receive all the money you earn through paypal.

2. Blogging:

Blogging involves making an internet journal. Blogspot is the most popular one because anyone can set up a blogging website and post entries in there. Based on what your blog is based on, you can attract viewers and link them to your e-bay page or anything else you're selling online.

3. Affiliate Marketing:

This is my favorite technique because it offers very little liability. Affiliate marketing involves you selling other people's items and making a commission on every sale. E-bay offers affiliate programs, but I stick to clickbank (free guide provided later on). Affiliate marketing is quite possibly one of the easiest and most profitable ways to make money using paypal.

4. Craig's list:

Craig's list is a popular website where people put up something to sell. It is like e-bay but is free. It doesn't get as much attention as e-bay but it definitely has a lot of potential to make money if you have something of value. You can even promote other people's items from popular websites like clickbank and commission junction, put them up on Craig's list and let it make money over and over!

5. Article marketing:

This is the technique I use to generate $1,000s every month. It is very easy and doesn't even involves paypal. All you do is register on clickbank and promote products and make money by just writing articles!

It is a very easy task once you try it a couple of times you will be amazed at how much money you can make. You can get a free 27 page guide on how to make $1,000s doing article marketing here!

Clever Ways to Make Extra Money

The truth is that there are a lot of clever ways to make extra money. Some of them are self-serving and take advantage of others, others are genuinely beneficial to everyone. So, while thinking of clever ways to make extra money, it is important to think about how each of these options will last in the long run. After all, you want to make money for a long time, not just until you get caught.

The internet is full of clever ways to make extra money. If you were to search in Google for "make money" you would get 111,000,000 options.

Common ways to make money

Paid Surveys - Companies offer you rewards to respond to surveys. These rewards are anything from points to cash, some cash rewards being as high as $50. Sounds good, right? In my experience the surveys are infrequent at best (at least, too infrequent to make a decent amount of money) unless you happen to be in the right demographic (usually wealthy enough to not be doing paid surveys).

Instant Wealth Programs - Anything offering you an instant way to get rich is probably not going to get you rich. It will, however, make the person you bought it from rich (and that is the hidden secret "that nobody tells you" to getting rich). Clever for them, not so much for you.

Online Auctions - If you have a product to sell this is a good option to use. If you want to try and find good deals, that you can then resell later, it is a little tricky unless you know your items and have a good sized investment to start off with. This is one way to make money that requires you to be extremely clever.

E-Books on Making Money - There are some real gems out in the e-book world. In fact, most of these books are pretty reasonable in price and offer some good information. Remember though, the internet is changing constantly and soon the lessons in that e-book will be obsolete. You could go out and buy another e-book, but then you would run into the same problem again and there's nothing clever about that.

Affiliate Marketing - Millions of people all over the world are looking for millions of products to buy. They are looking for reviews, tips, tricks, and secrets to all sorts of topics that you could provide for them. Affiliate marketing is basically bringing the customer (who is already looking for this product) to the product (who will then pay you for bringing the customer). There are a lot of ways to do affiliate marketing; websites, email, forums, or articles. There are infinite ways to use this form of marketing.

Article Marketing - By far one of the most clever ways to make extra money that I know of. There is no investment and it builds residual income as you go. People are looking for information all the time and you can provide it for them. The key is finding what they're looking for and you have to be very clever to do that.

The little tricks in article marketing are what really make the difference between a few sales and a lot of sales. Visit http://www.squidoo.com/writearticlesmakemoney for some FREE advice.

Strategies For Internet Marketing For Online Businesses

Internet marketing is a rather new phenomena and is really coming of age since the internet came to be. A whole industry has spurned out of the need for online businesses needing to find ways to attract new visitors and clients to their websites. There are many techniques that you can use to bring people to your website. Some methods will cost you money while others will cost you time. It really depends upon your needs and what the market says.

It is best to use multiple strategies when developing your internet marketing plan for your online business. So take some time planning what you are going to do and stick to it long enough to see the results. This is often one of the biggest mistakes people make is that they do not track their results and or stick with it long enough to be able to see if it is working or not.

If you are going to go ahead and pay for traffic, then you can do this through google adwords. Google adwords is a pay per click program in which you bid on keywords. Keywords are search terms that people type into the internet and you must have this knowledge before building out your internet business strategy. With Google Adwords you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This is great because it allows you to target your audience very specifically. There are many criterias for setting up your adwords campaigns and it is best to get training on how to do this before you jump into the fire. You can blow alot of money very quickly if you don't know what you are doing.

One of the foundational ways of building traffic and rankings for your online business is to do article marketing. This has proven to be a very effective way to do a number of things all at once. Content is king online and so when you have a website, you must plan to develop content and information for your visitors and for the search engines. By submitting articles to article directories like Ezine Articles, you are effectively getting your content syndicated across the web and also you are building back links to your site.

This leads me to the final component of this article. When your site it built, the most important daily activity you can do is build backlinks to your site. A backlink is when your information, website or keyword phrase is some other place than your site, and it is hyper-linked back to your website. It is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the more backlinks you have coming to your site, the more traffic you will get.

So if you are looking to use internet marketing for online businesses, then put together a strategic game plan based on your needs. Make sure you include article marketing on a regular basis as one of your core strategies with your internet marketing plan. Also, remember that the one with the most links wins, and not just any links, but quality links from other excellent websites that are all pointing back to your website.

Sam Clark is an expert internet marketer and professional market researcher as well. He also Runs the 16 Steps to Success which is a free training on Internet Marketing For Online Businesses

How to Create Success on the Internet

Now it is hard to be known whether or not you have started the business but the fact that you're reading this article is a strong indication that you would potentially like to start a business. It is essential that you understand the difference between traditional and Internet marketing along with the one special characteristic which can make Internet sales boom. At the end, a company will be highlighted for how it uses the special key element to its success.

You probably know about the benefits of owning your own business or not having a job. Your life is not dictated by the alarm clock and you can sleep in whenever you want. Many people would like the ability to work from their home and having an Internet business can allow you to do this.

The Internet allows much of your business to be fully automated. All of your marketing, sales processing, and customer follow-thru can be run with computer systems. This allows you to work on further developing your business so that you can increase your income and level of success.

This automation has led many to act on starting Internet businesses but has revealed a major flaw. Think about what causes you to do business with certain companies. You either like the company or like the personal representative who helps you. People do business with those they like and Internet has lost much of that personal touch. That is the special key element missing from many Internet businesses. When you are looking for an Internet business opportunity, you have to find a way in which you can create that human touch. By creating a human touch, you are able to make your business authentic and have it stand apart from those cold, inconsiderate businesses which don't thank you for doing business with them.

The last major point which will be emphasized here is that you want to work with a company you're comfortable with. Any good Internet business with systems in place will help you with mentoring while also showing you how to use their marketing systems. They should help you in developing a team of fellow entrepreneurs. This is critical because it is better to learn from others than to bang your head against the wall when you can work with others in developing plans.

This article should have explained why an Internet business may be right for you. Think through some of the advantages along with how you will be successful in the business. It is necessary to have a plan when you make a commitment to building an Internet business like this.

Introduction to Website Analytics

You recently revamped your firm's website or are planning an online marketing campaign, but are not really sure what you'll gain in return? Website analytics is a science whose aim is to answer such questions.

In this piece, we'll take a look at the benefits of web analytics and ways to optimize its tools.

Bet you're already thinking this is geeky stuff! But if we get rid of the jargon, website analytics simply means the study of the impact that a website has on its users. For example, what are the pages that most visitors spend time on? Which products sell best online? Is the registration process a turn-off?

But that's not all. Web analytics software can provide a whole lot of information in fine detail, thereby bringing valuable insight to marketers looking to refine their online strategy.

Things you can do using website analytics

Understand visitor behavior: Monitor the number of visitors and where they come from, understand how they navigate your site and what keywords they like, or get a feel of whether your site is meaty enough to hold their attention. An extreme example would be a study of visitor behavior on BBCi Search Service, which found that 1 in 12 search terms were misspelled!

Study advertising effectiveness: The U.S. online advertising market is booming, and set to cross US$ 16 billion 2009. That is almost twice what it was in 2004! Sooner or later, you'll find yourself contemplating an Internet driven campaign. Website analytics will enable you to find out how your website shows up in organic and paid searches, which banners are being clicked on the most and which affiliate sites work best. It could also help you review the performance of different keywords and judge whether you need to tweak those that haven't delivered.

Evaluate online sales: Let's face it! Your ultimate objective is to drive sales, and you'd rather put your money elsewhere if your online initiatives are not turning the cash registers. Your web analytics software will create reports that can tell you what kind of sales are being generated, how many customers return, who are the prospects and so on. And from that, you can calculate the ROI of your campaign.

On the flip side, website analytics may also tell you if your competitor is inflating your advertising costs by repeatedly clicking on your "pay per click" banner!

How to make the most of your web analytics reports

Choose carefully: Identifying an appropriate analytics vendor is paramount. Check their credentials - while there are lots of free sites, they might provide nothing other than visitor counts. Quality suppliers offer a basket of products - tailored to clients' specific business needs. Among the leading vendors of website analytics are and

Ask why: While analytics software can be a very effective tool, it's important to know how to use the insight that is generated. That's no different from say, a supermarket, where candy is placed near the checkout, because experience has shown that customers will buy it on impulse. Let's assume for a moment that your analytics report says that lots of people drop out before reaching the "buy now" page. Could this be due to a technical error which makes the page unreadable on some browsers? Or is it just too cumbersome to complete a transaction?

Take a second opinion: It is a good idea to have your website analyzed by a professional (in case you don't have the expertise) to see if the analytics reports suggest the need for a change in site layout. Often, a format that facilitates intuitive browsing will work better than a rich but intricate structure.

Know where you're headed: Most important, clearly define your website's objectives. Do you want it to provide information or prompt a specific action? Are you looking to generate leads or close a sale? The answers to these questions will determine the depth of your requirements. Only when you're sure of where you're going, will website analytics be a useful navigator!

Hi, I'm Akhil Shahani, a serial entrepreneur who wants to help you succeed. If you like to work smart, check out http://www.SmartEntrepreneur.net It's full of articles and resources to help you start and grow your business successfully. Please visit us & download our special "Freebie of The Month" at http://www.smartentrepreneur.net/freebie-of-the-month.html

Create a Successful Web Page Layout

A web page may seem like a puzzle, but keeping the layout simple and conventional will help your visitors finding what they need. You may be tempted to be more creative and unique, but keep in mind that web surfers will thank you for conforming by coming back to your website. To stand out, plan to use creative and unique colors and graphics instead. Here is an example of a simple and conventional layout that works well for most websites.

This article provides free, simple, and comprehensive information, hints, tips, and tools that will allow you to create a successful website. If you have time to learn, it will show you how to get the best of your website and how to run a successful internet business.

Header - Common identifier area

Every page of your website must let the visitors know that they are at your website. Here you may decide to feature your logo, banner, business name, or other graphic. Pay attention to the height of this area; if it is too tall, your content will be begin too low on the screen.

Navigation bar area

The navigation bar helps visitors finding their way through your website. Side navigation bars support an unlimited number of items while horizontal navigation bars leave more width for the content of your web pages. If practical, I always recommend the use of a horizontal navigation bar. Larger websites may need multiple navigation bars.

Web surfers are not very patient and will quickly leave your website if they do not find what they are looking for. Think your navigation system thoroughly to make it simple, efficient, and to minimize the number of clicks required to navigate through your website.

Bottom Footer - Common notes area

Every page must let the visitors know some key information about your website and who to contact in case of a question or problem. This area is also often used to repeat some or all of the links found in the navigation bar.

Main content area - Content is king

The main content area is what your visitors actually come to see. A useful and content rich website will convince your visitors about the seriousness of your business and will invite them to return to your website. Plan ahead and don't make your content an after fact simply to fill up empty spaces. Work and rework the text of your web pages, especially your home page.

Be aware that readers are uncomfortable with extremely short or extremely long lines so plan to use a two or three column layout, a bit like on a newspaper. Short paragraphs like on this page work well too.

Secondary content area - Flasher

A secondary content area is sometimes used for advertising or for highlighting some content that needs to be more visible. If you don't need it, leave this space for your main content.

Background and Colors

The newspaper industry figured out a long time ago that black letters on white paper are easy to read. Other dark font & light background color combinations work well but are a bit more risky. Light font & dark background color combinations often look strange. Do you want your website to look strange?

Pictures, logos, and artwork

Find pictures, logos, and artwork for your web pages. Save time and money by scanning printed documents you might already have. Use a digital camera and take your own pictures. Many websites including Microsoft offers great royalty free pictures.

Large picture and clips take time to download. Impatient visitors might be tempted to leave your website if it takes to long to download. Use judgment and balance.

Flash animations

Flash technology is sometimes used to create animations or sounds effects on web pages. While it can sometimes be cool, some people (like me) find them extremely annoying and will leave your website as soon as they start. Flash animations take time to download and distract your visitors from the main content of your website. Do you still want to use flash?

Outbound links

You worked hard to get a visitor to your website and the last thing you want is to loose them through outbound links. Providing non-competitive related links is great but make sure outbound links open up a new window so your web pages are still opened.

Page width

Each web browser can be set differently so web pages can look differently for different users. I always recommend a fixed page width of 775 pixels. Those pages look good for the vast majority of your visitors and will print well on a regular 8½" X 11" sheet of paper when the left and right margins are minimized.

Alain Houle owns and operates Alco Web Design which provides affordable website design and hosting services for small business owners. He strongly believes in effectiveness through education, simplicity, elegance, functionality, and affordability. Find free additional information, all related to small business website design and marketing, at http://alcowebdesign.com

Thursday 16 October 2008

Increase your page Rank in Search Engines

So you want to increase ranking in search engines for your website? To increase ranking in search engines, there are a number of things to consider. This article will cover the basics; however, by no means will we be able to cover everything. There are virtually endless explanations and strategies that will increase your site's ranking in search engines. We'll brake it down into a few categories.

Increase Ranking in Search Engines with Page Content

To increase ranking in search engines, your priority should be providing relevant content to your page viewers. If you do nothing else, this act alone should increase ranking on search engines. Remember, your viewers are looking for answers to their queries. If they are brought to your site and your content doesn't answer their questions, they'll be out of there fast! Why is this important? The search engines are often monitoring how long visitors remain on you site. If people come and go quickly, it will affect ranking in search engines. Concentrate of providing good content first.

Increase Ranking in Search Engines with Targeted Key Words or Phrases

There are a lot of ideas about how to effectively use keywords on your website and increase search engine rankings. Although search engine algorithms are constantly changing, the use of keywords will always be an important factor in increasing ranking in search engines. Things to consider are frequency of use, using word variations, and placement of the keywords on the page. The key here is to use words where they would naturally appear on your page. Forcing them into strange places, and using them in overabundance will likely result in a lower search engine ranking. Remember to place your keywords in title tags, links, bold tags, menu items, alt tags, etc. to let the search engine know that they are important. To increase ranking in search engines, try varying the use of these keywords until you find the right combination.

Increase Ranking in Search Engines with External Links

Search engines monitor how many sites are linking to your web page. The more sites you can get to link to you, the more important and popular your site will appear to the search engine. This will result in an increase in ranking in the search engines. However, the question of link quality also comes into play. Search engines like external links that come from sites that are related to the content on your site. They also like links that come from highly rated sites. So, don't waste time getting links from random websites. Be smart about it. Try to find sites that are highly ranked and content relevant, then work on establishing links from those sites to yours. Unrelated and low rated links can actually lower you ranking in search engines.

Increase Ranking in Search Engines with Internal Links

Internal links are another topic of discussion. Not only do search engines look at links outside of your site, they analyze the internal ones, too. To increase ranking in search engines, make sure that your internal links point primarily the the most important pages on you site. If your "pricing page" is more important than your "our staff" page, tell that to the search engines by linking to the "pricing page" from every other page in you site. Link to your "staff page" less frequently. This will drive visitors to the correct pages more often, thus increasing the average time of visitors on you site, and increasing your ranking in search engines.

Still Not Sure How to Increase Ranking in Search Engines?

If all of this seems a bit too complicated, consider hiring a professional. Usually an investment in search engine optimization will pay for itself over and over again.

How Much Should a Website Cost?

A specific answer to this general question does not exist. Websites vary in so many ways, it has become impossible to give a flat cost or price to expect when getting bids for a website. There are, however, a few questions that you should ask when looking for a website provider.

   1. Hosting Costs Every website mush be hosted on a server. Servers can be on location, or on the other side of the globe. You will need to determine what your needs are before you can select the server that is right for you. If you want to create a small personal or company website, there is probably no need to have your server on location. Doing so requires hiring a competent person to manage the server, which increases costs and the overall price of running your website. Most people manage quite well renting server space from a web host for a few dollars a month. A search for "web hosting" will return a slew of qualified potential hosts.
   2. Design & Development Costs This is where the pricing variables become prominent. There are some website providers that will deliver a canned website for a few hundred dollars - sometimes even for free. These sites are usually not very customizable, they are often poorly designed, and they provide limited support once they are launched. Although these sites serve many people well, it is my opinion that they poorly represent most companies and erode brand equity in the mind of the consumer. Mid-range websites cost anywhere from $1,000 - $15,000 dollars. I recommend this range to most individuals and small companies simply because these sites fit their needs best. Mid-range sites usually come with professionally designed user interfaces, custom image work, and customizable content. You could literally develop any website you desire within this price range. At this price, sites could include e-commerce and social networking features, to name a few. High-end websites run anywhere from $15,000 to millions of dollars. That's right - millions. High-end sites require teams of developers, designers, content writers, and more. There are very few companies that will offer to develop a high-end site at an affordable price. If you are looking for something of this nature, you would be better off hiring your own employees to work in-house.
   3. Service & Maintenance Costs Once your site is built, you are not done. Websites are always changing and adapting to technology. Your site will need to be updated frequently, optimized for search engines, and reworked often. When considering costs of developing a website, make sure to take these aspects into consideration. You don't want to own one of those "under construction" sites that litter the web. When choosing a host or designer, make sure that these services are available. Otherwise, unless you learn to do it your self, your site will quickly go the way of the dinosaur.

Conclusion

If you carefully analyze the three aspects of website pricing above, you'll be on your way to developing a site that will meet all of your needs, and remain within your budget. Don't ignore any of these key ingredients initially, or you'll suffer the consequences later. If you can find a provider that does all three, you'll likely save money, develop a better site, and reduce billing and payment headaches.

Derek Walker is a graphic designer and web marketing professional, specializing in the areas of search engine optimization and website design.

Software for Mac Website Builder

No longer does one software company have a virtually monopoly when it comes to web browsers. These days there are alternatives, including browsers with tabs. The appearance of a site is not created by the browser that accesses it, although it does take on some of that browser's highly individual characteristics. Each site is created with certain browsers in mind to make it look its best at first sight. A mac website builder helps you develop the ideal website for a mac browser.

You may be wondering how mac site builder proves useful to web designers. Actually, the number of user using this browser has considerably increased. As such, the traffic coming to the websites from this browser has attained critical proportions. It would be pure foolishness to ignore such a large section of internet users for any web entrepreneur.

As the Internet advanced, and the graphical browser replaced the text-only version, layout and design became much larger issues for everybody. People needed mac compatible site builder software to ensure their pages would look good across all platforms. Unfortunately, such programs have only recently become available to the web design community.

If you are a web designer and want an easy way to verify compatibility for a website originally designed for other browsers, then you will want to use mac website builder software. This software not only conducts automated testing of website compatibility it also provides suggestions on how to optimize a website for mac browser.

Any website that you want to be viewable worldwide should be compatible with all of today's most widely viewed browsers. The amount of content on your pages should be formatted so that no matter how a user views it on the internet, the look should come up as you designed it. When using the mac site builder, the program runs compatibility checks to make sure that the site will load in most browsers as it is designed.

And here's the best part: not only is mac website builder easy to use, but it even comes with free tutorial videos. These will give you all the information you need to design and customize your very own website. Not only that, the software is available for free.

The design of every website is customized for specific browsers so that the website generates a good first impression to a first time visitor. A mac website builder will assist you in designing perfect websites visited using the eponymous browser. The mac site builder software provides web designers with an easy way to conduct automated compatibility testing of websites initially designed for other browsers. As the graphical browser replaced the text-only version, layout and design became much larger issues for everybody. People needed mac compatible site builder software to ensure their pages would look good across all platforms.

Build and Create an Anime Site

Are you looking to build an anime site? If you would like to create your own anime website, here are a few tips and some basic guidelines to help you get started.

First, for any anime site to be truly successful, you will need to get a domain name and hosting service. Try selecting a name that will associate well with the anime you are going to promote. This way, you will make it easily for people to find you and they will also be more readily to visit your site if it's an anime name that they are familiar with.

After you have your domain name and hosting service, you are ready to get going. One of the most important things you will want to do is get good content onto your site. Start writing fresh and interesting content such as anime news and information for your viewers to read. You can also talk about the top anime shows, anime movies to look out for, or anything else that is relevant to your web site. Having great anime content that's updated frequently is a must if you want people to visit often.

Another important aspect when you create your anime website is you may want to post videos. Anime streaming is beginning to take the internet by storm and by having video streaming, you make it extremely convenient for your viewers so that they do not worry about downloading a video and waiting for it to load. They can just click on the video and have instant access to the anime movie anytime. All of these will help attract more visitors to your site and get returning visitors.

With more traffic coming to your website, you may also want to keep in mind how you like to monetize your anime site. You can choose to post advertisements, links or even sell anime merchandise to add a little extra cash to your pocketbook.

From this point on, it is now solely up to you as to what you want to include on your anime site. You can build a discussion board or forum of some sort that will allow you to communicate with your loyal visitors about various anime topics. This can be extremely beneficial to you as it will open up more opportunities to convert your loyal visitors into your potential customers and that means more money.

So as you can see, there really is no limit as to how you create an anime site. Just make sure you always give your viewers what they want and you will do really well with your new anime site.

Would you like to build your own anime site in 48 hours? Find out exactly how you can create an anime empire even if you're just starting with the Create An Anime Site guide!

Make Easy Website Navigation

Navigation is how visitors get around your site. If your navigation is unclear then your visitors will get frustrated and go away. If they do that, you'll make a lot less money with your website.

So the goal with website navigation is to make it clear and consistent. I prefer a simple navigation strategy. Keep it simple for humans and it will be fine for Google.

In general, my sites work like this.

The home page is optimized for my main keyword phrase. That's what I call my tier 1 phrase. My tier 1 page links to my tier 2 pages via a navigation bar. Tier 2 phrases are those keyword phrases that tend to be natural groups for all of your other keywords.
If you have a site on dog training and six or seven good keyword phrases that have to do with training Yorkies, then your tier 2 phrase for that group would be something like "training Yorkies." It's been shown that navigation bars down the left-hand side of the page work best. Although, I do have a number of smaller sites with navigation bars across the top.

The tier 2 pages link to the tier 3 pages, but not through the navigation bar. The tier 3 pages are your most specific pages. Continuing with the Yorkie example, the tier 3 pages might be something like "housebreaking Yorkies", "walking Yorkies," or "teaching Yorkies to do tricks." It's been shown to be best if your tier 3 pages are linked to through text links in a tier 2 page.

I've seen a lot of sites that have the navigation both along the side and across the top. Don't do that! It's nothing if not confusing!

If you're going to use a WordPress blog for your site, then the navigation is already taken care of. What I do is have really major categories on buttons across the top (normal blog format) and then use the "Categories" box for finer divisions, or use text links from the pages. I usually let the buttons across the top go to tier 2 pages and navigate out from there via text links. For housekeeping type pages like a site map or terms of service, I create a quick, text-based navigation bar in the footer.

You don't have to do things this way. These are just the best practices.

The issue here is making it easy for your visitors. When it's your site, it's sometimes hard to see what's confusing for people who are not as familiar with it as you are.
To learn more about how to promote your website, download my free ebook: Five Steps to Web Profits
Lee Cole is an successful internet marketer who can help you get your internet business up and running, and most importantly--profitable! To learn more, visit Lee's website

Monday 13 October 2008

Ten Web Design DONT's (For the Graphic Designer)

1. Don't start a layout without having a concept/idea.

Before starting, ask yourself: who am I designing this for? What are the target's preferences? How am I going to make this better than the client's competition? What will be my central "theme"? Would it revolve around a certain color, a certain style? Will it be clean, grungy, traditional, modern etc? What will be the "wow factor"?

Then, before jumping to your favorite part - laying everything out in Photoshop, right? - take a sheet of paper and sketch your idea. This will help you organize the elements better and get a general idea of whether an idea would work or not, before you invest too much time designing in Photoshop.

2. Don't obsess over the trends.

Shiny buttons, reflections, gradients, swirls and swooshes, grungy elements - all these are staples in contemporary web design. But with just about everything else, moderation is key. If you make everything shiny, you will end up just giving your visitor an eye sore. When everything is an accent, nothing stand out anymore.

3. Don't make everything of equal importance

Egalitarianism is desirable in society, but it doesn't apply to the elements on your web page. If all your headlines are the same level and all the pictures the same height, your visitor will be confused. You need to direct their sight to the page elements in a certain order - the order of importance. One headline must be the main headline, while the others will subordinate. Make one picture stand out (in the header, maybe) and keep the others smaller. If you have more than one menu on the page, decide which one is the most important and attract the visitor's view to it. Create a hierarchy. There are many ways in which you can control the order in which a visitor "reads" a web page.

4. Don't lose sight of the functionality

Don's just use elements because they are pretty - give them a legitimate place in your design. In other words, don't design for yourself (unless you are designing your own websites, of course), but for your customer and your customer's customers.

5. Don't repeat yourself too much and too often

It's easy to get tricked into reusing your own elements of design, especially once you got to master them to perfection. But you don't want your portfolio to look like it was created for the same client, do you? Try different fonts, new types of arrows, borders styles, layer effects, color schemes. Find alternatives to your go-to elements. Impose yourself to design the next layout without a header. Or without using glossy elements. Break your habits and keep your style diverse.

6. Don't disregard the technology.

If you're not the one coding the website, talk to your programmer and find out how the website will be implemented. If it's going to be all Flash, then you want to take advantage of the great possibilities for the design and not make it look like a standard HTML page. On the other hand, if the website will be dynamic and database-driven, you don't want to get too unconventional with the design and make the programmer's job impossible.

7. Don't mix and match different design elements to please your client.

Instead, offer your expertise: explain how different elements look great in a certain context but don't work in another one or in combination with other elements. That's not to say that you shouldn't listen to your client. Take into account all their suggestion, but do it to their best interest. If what they suggest doesn't work design-wise, offer arguments and alternatives.

8. Don't use the same boring stock photos like everyone else

The happy customer support representative, the successful (and political correct) business team, the powerful young leader - they are just a few of the stock photography industry's clichés. They are sterile, and most of the time look so fake that will reflect the same idea over the company. Instead, try using "real people", or search harder for creative and expressive stock photographs.

9. Don't try to reinvent the wheel

Being creative is in your job description, but don't try to get creative with the things that shouldn't change. With a content heavy or a portal-style website, you want to keep the navigation at the top or at the left. Don't change the names for the standard menu items or for things like the shopping cart or the wishlist. The more time a visitor needs to find what they are looking for, then more likely it is they will leave the page. You can bend these rules when you design for other creatives - they will enjoy the unconventional elements. But as a general rule, don't do it for other customers.

10. Don't be inconsistent

Stick with the same fonts, borders, colors, alignments for the entire website, unless you have strong reasons not to do so (i.e. if you color-code different sections of the website, or if you have an area dedicated to children, where you need to use different fonts and colors). A good practice is to set up a grid system and build all the pages of the same level in accordance with it. Consistency of elements gives the website a certain image that visitors will become familiar with.

For an illustrated version of the article, please visit: http://www.ardis-creative.com/ardisblog/?p=209
Ardis Homepage: http://www.ardis-creative.com

Create Your First Website Without HTML Knowledge

In this article I am not going to teach you how to create top class design. Instead I will show you how to design your first website without any HTML knowledge.

If you have never designed any website before it may sound like difficult job. Don't worry - if you can work with Microsoft Word you can also create easy website. There are two ways how to achieve this goal - the first one is classic HTML coding. The second one is using WYSIWYG editor.

WYSIWYG means What You See Is What You Get. You will be maybe surprised to hear that one of the easiest WYSIWYG editors can be Microsoft Word. You can easily write some text, format it, add some pictures etc. and then instead of saving the document like .doc choose save as HTML. The source code will look extremely unprofessional for every web designer but more important is the fact that it works and everybody can do that.

OK, now you are able to create very easy website and you are probably asking yourself if there is a way how to make better website using similar method. You can download some editor like Front Page. The interface is similar like Microsoft Word but there are many other functions specially designed for web developers. These functions are very intuitive so after a few minutes of testing them you will be able to go to the next level of web designing.

One of very useful functions is switching between WYSIWYG mode and HTML source. When you will become familiar with your WYSIWYG editor you will probably sometimes need to do something what is not possible in WYSIWYG mode. It is the time when you should every time when you change something on the website switch to HTML mode and learn was changed in the HTML code. This way you will be very quickly able to understand basic HTML and make some changes in the source code every time you will want.

The next level can be using some of many online website builders. You can find some easy website builders which can be used for free, sign up for some service offering feature rich builder or go with a web hosting company which offers this feature in its web hosting plan. When you decide for one of these solutions you will pick some of many offered designs, choose color scheme and add text for every page. Then save your work and your web is finished. The advantage of using website builders are professionally looking designs which you will probably never create using WYSIWYG editor. On the other side you must keep in mind that the same design will be used by many other webmasters. So this solution is good for personal or other non-commercial websites.

Another way to your own website are free templates. There are hundreds of free designs which can be downloaded for free as long as you leave the authors link in the footer. When you download your favorite design, open it in your browser, click by right mouse button and use View source option. Now edit the text in the page and when done save it and publish.

Make your website noticed...

Having a website built for your business may be considered as the first step taken towards online success. In fact, it is commonly known that the online market is continuously expanding and developing. The online advantages that a website provides are absolutely useful for any business especially for the real estate sector.

The real estate website design industry has greatly evolved, mainly since realtors have increased in number considerably and at the same time are aware of the ever changing online industry. Each client brings a new idea and preference into discussion and that is why the web design field in real estate has greatly improved its techniques.

So on the one hand, having your mortgage website design or your mortgage broker website done is vital. But having a website is not the end of it. It is just the beginning. A website needs a popularization and promotion factor that would deal with their introduction and with their optimization for search engines. Yes, you got the picture right: promoting websites for search engines is the right thing to do in order to get them noticed and to make them popular. But how can we do this?

Actually there are unaccountably numerous options that would suit all the preferences and especially all the budgets of mortgage broker website owners. These vary from the easiest ones, like the appeal to SEO specialists and experienced web design and promoting companies to the more complicated ones, but which are also the less expensive: the do-it-yourself options. The latter category includes the personal implication in promoting a website through forums or through other techniques or the appeal to cheaper services of this kind, but which are sometimes doubtful as well as inefficient.

So the range of variants is unlimited and more importantly, it is very varied as methods. So for a real estate agent who wants to hire highly qualified SEO experts and professionals to deal with its website's promotion and popularization through search engines the procedure of finding such companies is very simple, by appealing to advanced searches on search engines or by accessing freelance websites and searching for the best ranked provider companies. Highly professional companies may also be found in the special forums dedicated to web design advertisements so the range is very generous in searching quality and high-class prices.

On the other hand, there are also plenty of options for the real estate marketing websites who don't want to spend much on their web promotion. They can find numerous SEO guides tutorials and webinars which are meant to teach them to use the most efficient methods of optimization for search engines. These methods include promotion through forums, through answer websites, pay per click or pay per play methods and also the popular traffic generator engines which also have an important say in the field of website promotion.
So irrespective of the resources of the real estate marketing put into discussion, there are options for all the needs and budgets.

3 Ways to Build a Business Website on a Budget

For many people, the thought of building a business website can be intimidating -- paralyzing, in fact. They start out with great intentions and great business ideas but freeze at the thought of building a website themselves and never go any further.

But while there are plenty of companies that are happy to build your site for you, we suggest that if you're planning a simple business website, you do it yourself.

Your offer, your salescopy, your navigation, and your overall layout will have a FAR bigger impact on whether or not your business website is profitable than fancy graphics, buttons, and logos - and doing it yourself is the best way to make sure you've got everything you need.

As your business grows, you'll initially be testing many different ideas on your web pages and changing your site frequently. You'll save huge amounts of time, money, and frustration if you can make at least basic changes yourself.

So where do you start?

There are three main ways you can build a website yourself. The one you choose will depend on how much elbow grease you're willing to put into it, as well as the complexity of the site you want to develop.

You can...

    * Teach yourself HTML. Don't worry. Learning HTML is easier than you might think. Unlike most foreign languages (like Japanese, German, or Italian), HTML is pretty self-explanatory. For example: <strong> means "start bold" and </strong> means "stop bold." There are a ton of great HTML resource sites available for free, such as DaveSite.com. Just do a search for "HTML tutorial" and you'll get lots of options. You can even find sites that have sample pages or simple business website templates that you can modify to fit your needs.
    * Use software that "codes" the HTML for you, such as Dreamweaver or KompoZer. "HTML editors" are programs that allow you to design a web page with little knowledge of HTML - and they are as easy to use as any basic word processor. These programs will make your job a hundred times easier. Provided you know the basics, the program will do the rest for you. For example, an HTML editor will allow you to take a document, highlight where you want it bolded, centered, etc., and it will automatically translate your requests into HTML code for you.
    * Use an automated "all-in-one" business website builder, such as BeBiz. Another option you may want to consider if you're a bit intimidated by technology is an online all-in-one website builder, where a company provides you with all the tools you need to quickly piece together a website. These tools guide you through creating your own images, logos, and salescopy, and provide you with templates and add-on features like opt-in forms, "Buy Now" buttons, and more. You literally "point and click" to build your website, without knowing any HTML at all. For a first site, this can be a very quick way to get a professional business site up and running. You pay a monthly fee, and they give you the basics you need to build your website, host it, and automate it.


As you can see, if you want to build a website for your business yourself, you have lots of options -- whatever your budget. And being able to control the design and sales elements of your site is well worth any extra effort... so you can always steer your business to maximum conversions and sales.

Derek Gehl, CEO of The Internet Marketing Center helps online entrepreneurs create incomes of $100,000 to $2.5 MILLION or more per year online with their business websites. Now you can get the proven strategies Derek uses to quickly, easily, and automatically make money online in one powerful package. Watch Derek's free video and find out how to build your business website with BeBiz today.

2008 Web Site Design - What Doesn't and What Works

Let me say this right at the beginning. There are as many opinions about what makes a good web site as there are web sites. I doubt that anyone has ever said, "I think I will put up an ugly web site that does not work", although I have visited some that make me wonder.

American architect, Louis Sullivan, popularized the phrase, "Form follows function" and turned it into the 'first commandment' of designers, everywhere. Of course Sullivan was designing skyscrapers, not web sites, but the principle still holds true. It does not matter whether you pay a top designer mega-bucks to create your site, or whether you create it yourself. You must know exactly what you want your site to do for you before you begin.

A beautiful web page with all the bells and whistles is a waste of your time and/or money if it does not work. On the other hand, an extremely simple page, put together in a few minutes with a free, WYSIWYG program can be a perfect web site, if it does everything you want it to do. If you publish a simple, one page web site that makes you a fortune, the experts will applaud you as a genius for using an elegant, minimalist approach. Of course, if it does not make you a fortune, those same experts will say, "What did you expect? It's ugly"!

Of course, if Louis Sullivan's first skyscraper had fallen down, we would not know that form follows function and I would not even be writing this article. So, my hat is off to good design.

OK, how do you avoid some of the common pitfalls?

    * If you are selling a product, know that product inside and out. You cannot sell a product you haven't tried yourself. At least you should not.
    * Know what you want from the visitors to your web site. Do you want them to buy, immediately? Do you want them to opt-in to your newsletter, or e-mail campaign?
    * Know where you want your visitors to go when they leave your home page. Do you want to redirect them to another page? Another site? To their in-box to eagerly await your e-mail? Make sure you have the right links to get your visitors to where you want them to go and that they all work.
    * Before you begin, know the "mood" you want to establish on your page. Even if you love Rap, don't use Rap music as a background to a site selling gravestones, unless you have decided that your best customers are going to be Gang Bangers.
    * Do not confuse your visitors with useless gadgets and widgets. Keep them focused.

If you know your product, know what you want from your visitors and know how you want to approach them, form will follow function and the experts will call you a GURU, whatever that is.

Free web design, free audio/video programs and free list building tools are some of the subjects David Hardin covers in his "Write Yourself Rich" program at The Ugly Web Site at http://www.davehardinonline.com Go sign up for his FREE "Not Just A Sales pitch" newsletter