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The Benefts of Professional Article Services

By Eric Gruber in Featured

Professional article services can provide you with effective article marketing campaigns that can turn a failing online business into an unexpected success by giving you the time to focus on the more important aspects of your business.

This is not to suggest that you cannot write articles yourself – of course you can – but it can be time-consuming to write in a manner that attracts readers, keeps them reading and then compels them to click the links in your resource to reach your website.

Sure, you can do that yourself, but do you have the time? Probably not, since the majority that are developing their online businesses want to spend their time doing that and expanding their range of products or services. What time is left to write compelling articles and submit them? Next to none!

Article services can do that for you – not only write your articles but also submit them. However, there is always an associated cost, and you have to determine what the cost of your article services are in respect of the benefits you receive. There are two basic ways of looking at this, and while it is not possible to quantify them for individual cases, you can at least consider them with respect to yourself, individually.

1. Saving Time

It takes time to write a good article. Those that claim to teach you how to write a great winning article in 15 minutes are taking nonsense. You might write 300 words about your product, but that won’t impress anybody, and won’t be accepted by many of the important directories that require a minimum 500 word count or even more.

Also, can you write compellingly? Can you persuade a reader that your product is better than the next guys without being allowed to mention your product or even your website? That doesn’t seem very easy, does it. You won’t learn that skill quickly! How long will it take? I know people that work for an hour or more on a 500 word article just to get the spelling and grammar right!

Spelling is extremely important, and any errors in these days of spell checkers will be regarded as unacceptable and careless, but no spell check will tell you that ‘there’ should be ‘there’ or ‘to’ should be ‘too’. In spite of what you have heard, grammar also counts with a number of people. An article with no errors in its grammar will attract more visitors to the link on the resource than the same article full of schoolboy errors. That’s a fact, not an opinion!

So, how long will it take you? Figure that out against the cost of the article from a site offering professional article services. If the money spent is worth the time saved, then it makes sense. If not, then it doesn’t. Your choice, but it is a logical and economic one as all business choices should be – not based upon opinion but on facts.

2. Now for the benefits.

Until you are aware of the its benefits, you will be unable to determine the real benefit of the time you will save by using professional article services to help with your article marketing strategy. There are four main benefits:

• You can have your articles published on ezines and article directories. For each of these that accept your article you will receive a share of the PageRank of the web page on which your article is published. The Page Rank cited for the Home Page of the article directory is irrelevant – that is immaterial because the ranking points you receive are related only to the page on which your article is published, and also the other links leaving that page. However, it improves your Google PageRank score.
• Contrary to what many believe, visitors to article directories read the articles. You can get several hundred people reading your article each month if the title attracts them.
• Many people use published articles as content for their websites. This is particularly popular with those that use Adsense and other contextual advertising systems to monetize pages on their sites. To do so, they must also include your resource that publishes your website links, so you get Google PageRank points from the links back to your website from the page on which your article has been used.
• Naturally, anybody visiting that other website can click on your links and visit a page on your website. That page must lead readers to a page that relates to the topic of the article you have written, and also contain a link at least to your home page.

All things considered, when you take into account every benefit that a successful article marketing campaign can provide for you, then using professional article services might make sense rather than trying to do it yourself.

A professional article will be more likely to attract readers and keep them on the page till they click on your link. After that it is up to you, but the same service can also be used to provide the content that will them keep the visitor on that page and perhaps even purchase your products or services.

Is it worth it to you? That is for you to decide, but just as you would consider professional SEO services, advertising services and emailing services as possibilities to help you market your business, so article marketing is an aspect of advertising that good, professional article services can look after for you, leaving you to do what you do best. Make money!

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Find out how article services can promote your success on Article Services and visit Article Czar for a free gift and details of how to do it yourself.

My New Top 10 Free Website Traffic Generation Methods – Part 1

By Willie Crawford in Featured

In 2008, I wrote an ebook that revealed my most effective methods of generating free website traffic. As online conditions and technologies change, I feel it’s now time to update that ebook.

However, instead of revealing my new top 10 free website traffic generation methods in ebook format, I’m going to do it in a 10-part article series.

While I do list these methods in order of my preference, it’s not necessarily by which ones produce the most traffic. Instead, I list them also considering which produce the highest quality traffic, and therefore adds the most to my bottom-line.

Let’s get started…

My number one favorite method of generating free website traffic is via an affiliate program. I like releasing simple, inexpensive products that pay as much as 100% commission on the front-end. Properly done, this can create thousands of affiliates all working frantically to send you highly-qualified BUYING traffic.

They find and send you traffic that you wouldn’t otherwise have, and you reward them for doing so.

If you’d like to see a live example of how I do this, visit: http://sellmorebigticket.com The product there is a $17 audio/ebook combination where I pay affiliates 100% commission. That ebook is called “The Secrets To Selling More Big Ticket Products” and is an MP3 and PDF transcript where I share exactly how I do that

There are a number of keys to making this most effective, and I see many people who attempt this tactic missing some of the most important elements. Those keys are:

1) You want to make managing the whole system as easy as possible. If your system is too burdensome, you won’t use it for very long. I use the Rapid Action Profits system, developed by my friend Sid Hale, to manage this affiliate program. I use it because once I set up a site, RAP makes management practically hands-free. The script can be configured to pay any percentage commission that you desire on a front-end and/or back-end product.

The beauty of the system is that when a sale is made, the affiliate is paid instantly directly to their Paypal account, and the customer is redirected to a download page. At that point, my affiliate has sent me that prized traffic, but as importantly, is also building me a mailing list.

2) You need to also have a good back-end product in-place. I typically have a second product that I offer immediately after that first sale. You can offer affiliates any percentage commission on this sale, and I often don’t offer any since I’ve given them all of the money from the front-end sale.

The key though, is that if you do offer a back-end product (or one-time-offer) you will often get a major percentage of customer take it. So, if you don’t have that offer in place, you’re leaving behind much of your profits.

3) You need to have follow-up in place. It does little good to build that list if you don’t later follow-up with them. Another reason that I like using Rapid Action Profits is that it builds a database right within the software.

Since some web hosting companies limit the number of emails that you can send from their servers (at one time), RAP also offers the capability for automatically building your list on a third-party system (such as Aweber.com or ProfitAutomation.com).

I have at least 30 sites built using RAP. Those are all traffic generation systems. Can you tell that I like RAP? You should check out RAP at http://timic.org/RAP

4) Here’s where a lot of people using this traffic generation method cut corners, and fail…

You need to give affiliates lots of great tools so that it’s really, REALLY easy for them to register as affiliates and then promote like crazy.

Many of your affiliates won’t feel comfortable creating tools on their own. So, if you don’t give them the tools, they’ll end up doing nothing. Tools should include:

Banners in a variety of sizes

Solo emails

Blog posts

Tweets

Classified ads (suitable for Google AdWords)

The tools should have the affiliates’ links automatically inserted in the proper places – something RAP handles beautifully. If you force your affiliates to have to track down links, and then manually edit the tools you offer, many won’t bother.

5) Here’s how you make your traffic generator go viral…

Invite your customers to become affiliates after they purchase. I’ve seen many merchants put links to their affiliate program right on the sales page. I don’t like this technique since I feel that it can distract customers that your affiliates worked hard to send you. So, I don’t feel that it’s fair.

Instead, I put links to sign-up for the affiliate program on my product download pages, AND often in the products themselves. Simply explain to customers that they can register, promote the product, and earn instant commissions. This is very effective, especially when you have all of those great affiliate tools in place.

It’s also very effective because the INSTANT commissions helps those who need the cash now!

Ok, I’ve just shared with you my very favorite method for generating free website traffic. I basically get others to send me the traffic, and then I have tools in place to leverage that traffic.

Stay tuned for part 2…

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Willie Crawford has been marketing goods and services over the internet since 1996, and teaches many of his tactics in his free ezine. Be sure to not miss the rest of this series by subscribing at http://WillieCrawford.com/

Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?

By Sasch in Featured

While ostensibly aimed at helping Google target potential weaknesses in its own product pages, and of no direct use to SEOs, there is nonetheless more than a little gold to be found here, if one just examines the document in a little more depth. So while the post at Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is already beginning to bristle with comments lamenting the fact that this isn’t a clear treasure map to the search-ranking mother lode, it’s worth sifting through the Report Card to see what informational nuggets are hidden inside.

Your Business, Google and Social Media ROI

By Tinu AbayomiPaul in Featured

There’s a lot of confusion around the issue of social media and getting a return on one’s time and social investment, to the point that some people think social media for business is ineffective.

If you’ve been thinking that lately, think about how happy you’d be if social media helped you get into your target market’s path through Google.

According to a recent announcement by Google, social media may now be able to help you in ways you hadn’t ever dared to dream. The ROI, or return on investment, from your social media efforts can be measurable and meaningful in a new way.

If you’re already using social media, you’re likely aware of how it can help you get traffic to your site. For example, popular entries often get more exposure, and the links they often generate. Now, social media may be able to help you get more exposure through the networks of the people you interact with the most.

In October 2009, Google started an experiment called Google Social Search, which you could opt in to, in order to see information from what Google is calling your social circle, in your search results. On the day of the iPad launch, they quietly rolled out Google Social Search Results to anyone who is logged into a Google account when they search.

What could that mean to you?

Well, if you’ve been cultivating a social presence in Twitter, for example, and become connected to 1000 people, if they have Google accounts they and their connections, will be added to your social circle, from which Google will pull extra search listings to be integrated into the current set when a user is logged in.

Of course, when you start to think that even though Google has a dominant market share, even if a full 25% of them have a Google account and are logged in, you might think that doesn’t give you much of a boost.

That’s not necessarily true. You have to look at three factors: first, are you the only person in your niche that the person searching is connected to?

If you’ve been building your social network for quality from potential clients and customers rather than only quantity, where you just follow peers, auto-follow friends and existing friends so they’ll follow you back, the answer is, probably.

Second, personal suggestions are stronger than what any search engine says. Being found in search helps dramatically. But when it comes down to the tie-breaker, folks buy from folks they know.

Third, it’s not just the people you’re connected to, it’s the people THEY are connected to as well. If you look at the video below, it says towards the end that the people your friends are connected to are included in your extended social circle.

Well, that means you’re included in the friends of your friends as well. So not only will you get them in your search results, you’ll be in theirs.

That could end up being a lot of people.

Add in the recent changes to Google Reader, the move to Google Caffeine, the debut of Google Buzz in Gmail. Gmail alone has a reported 220 million accounts in use.

Of course, this can be blown out of proportion – social media is important, as is search, to traffic generation. But they are each one tool in a well rounded strategy. It’s folly to lean on any singular method to get traffic to a site to the exclusion of all others, because if your strategy fails or its effectiveness changes over time, you’re putting your entire business at risk.

So keep in mind as you strategize that you still have regular search engine optimization to contend with – your primary Google traffic focus ought to be the people who are not logged into Google, as they are the majority.

Remember also though that even they have live updates from social sites like Twitter, are now streamed into results. So, like it or not, ignoring social media or denying its influence is to do so at the peril of your own business. And hyper-targeted traffic to a smaller audience is still more money in your pocket at the end of the day. Keep it all in perspective is my only warning.

If you’re not already seeing a return on your investment in social media through better links, higher traffic, and viral spread of your messages, now is the time to fix whatever is wrong with your social media traffic strategy.

A sound social media strategy is already critical for you to gain or keep your edge over your competition. From local coffeeshops broadcasting specials to Mayors on Foursquare to becoming a favorite place in Google Maps, social commerce is the way of the day. Now it’s factoring into search strategy more than ever before. Search is now social.

Are you ready?

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Google Social Search may only provide a modest boost in traffic today, but what about tomorrow? How could Google Buzz help you get more traffic to your site? Find out how much Google Social Search can impact your business today.

Seven Inexpensive Ways to Generate Traffic to Make Money Online

By Jay Allyson in Featured

There are multiple ways to get traffic to your website for very little cost that can make you money online.

If you just got a small proportion of those visitors to convert to leads or sales, that has cost you nothing but your time.

There are two hard facts of any internet business that you cannot escape.

To make money online, you need to generate traffic to your website and second, you need to convert that traffic into buyers.

You might try to do this directly by sending them to a sales page or you may do it indirectly by sending them to an opt-in page to capture their details or to your information site or blog.

First, you should focus on identifying your killer keywords – the ones that attract the right kind of people into you business.

With a good match between what people are searching for and what you are offering, the actual traffic you generate will be more highly targeted and predisposed to your offer and so more likely to convert into buyers.

If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income.

BUT, it doesn’t take thousands to generate website traffic to your site.

While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, the holy grail is knowing how to generate low cost website traffic without having to run up a huge daily advertising bill.

Here I present to you my top 7 strategies to generate low cost website traffic that could help make money online for you.

1. Link exchanges

This is a well known and proven strategy. It’s rare these days to see a website without a link to another site.

Many business owners are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more visibility for their sites.

The more you create back links to your website from other pages, the more the traffic you’ll see coming as you’ll start to rank higher.

If you’re exchanging links with other sites, it’s important that the link is relevant. This usually means it is in the same niche or a relate niche as your own site.

This strategy pleases humans as much as it keeps the search engines happy.

Exchanging links with authority sites or sites with high page ranks will also increase your traffic even more significantly, as it will boost your rankings in search engine listings.

This is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

2. Article Marketing

There are many electronic magazines (called ezines) and online newsletters around on the internet which provide free space for you to submit articles.

If you want to keep your costs low, you can write the articles yourself. But you can save time, by using the many freelance writers who are willing to create articles on your best converting keywords or keyword phrases. The fees are much smaller than you might think.

Write articles that complement your website, product, business or other offer. Write on topics that you have expertise on so you develop your knowledge researching around the subject and can come across as an authority.

Write articles that produce tips and guidance on the subject or your niche. Looking at existing content on your chosen niche will help you find gaps so less competition and your article will rank more highly for those keywords.

At the end of the article submission process, you can insert a “resource box”. It’s here that can say something about yourself or your business and provide your visitors with a link to your site if they want to find out more.

If they do go there, they are already impressed and predisposed to your offer, wouldn’t you say?

Once you have your article accepted in your primary article directory, you can also send variations to other article directories.

There is a lot of free article submission software available to automate the process and if you are doing a lot of article marketing, a great paid service I personally use is SubmitYourArticles.

3. Video marketing

Video marketing can send literally thousands Of visitors to your primary business. It really is the social medium of the moment. Just look at the popularity of YouTube! 5-10 minutes is all you need to get your point across.

You can either use a camcorder to video your own talking head or create a footage around your product or offer and add the audio later.

If you’re not yet confident on camera, you can also create a series of photos and powerpoint slides and record an audio commentary around that.

Don’t forget to add your website URL as a running title along the top.

Once you have a few videos made, you then need to drive traffic to them. The best way is to submit them to video sites. The most popular are youtube.com, metacafe.com and dailymotion.com.

To really maximise exposure and get the most traffic back to you website, you can use video submission tools. There’s a free video submission service, TubeMogul. An even better tool is a paid service I use is Traffic Geyser.

Once you’re registered on the main video sites, this submitter tool will automatically submit your video to a whole host of video sites for you, resulting in tonnes of free traffic to your website.

4. Forum marketing

This is completely free – it only requires an input of your time. Do some initial sculking around to identify the kinds of problems people have in this niche.

Once you feel you understand the community, you can start to feedback a comment, start a post, here and there, using your knowledge and expertise.

You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

With every post, you can add a link to your site. But remember first to give value, not just blatantly advertise your site.

As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your site that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

5. Twitter marketing

Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. They help you build your authority and social networks within your niche.

Twitter has totally transformed the way that people communicate online and since it’s free, it really should be an indispensable part of your overall marketing strategy and link to your blog.

Twitter is free to join and you can get set up with an account in a matter of just a few minutes.

Twitter has proven itself to be incredibly addictive and, for business owners, very valuable too.

Technology such as Twitter has the potential to give us more than just an opportunity to tell others what happened in our day. We can use it to reach more people in a meaningful way.

Imagine if you had cost-efficient and fast marketing tools that met existing customers where they are and that also helped you acquire new customers.

Imagine if you had the power to build a network of like-minded peers, a community of shared ideas and creativity.

6. Blog marketing

You blog should therefore be one of the main hubs for your business. It’s all about YOU Inc.

As your name gets passed around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list and RSS subscribe feed for people who regularly visit your site.

People buy from people they know, like and trust. A blog is like dating – you wouldn’t propose on the first date so why shove your sales pitch down a new visitors throat.

You can point your articles, videos, forum posts and social media activities all through your blog.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a blog but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many many sources of ideas and inspiration for your blog, which come from your day to day activities and your own personal development.

7. Facebook marketing

Social networking has always been a main part of many internet marketers strategy. But most don’t use it effectively at all. They flood the likes of Facebook and Myspace with offers and promotions. This won’t work.

If you want to use social tools like Facebook to generate traffic to your website, you first have to identify the right groups and then invest something of yourself.

You need to be prepared to make a personal connection with other folks in the community. This kind of media thrives on authentic networking.

Posting up useful content on social networks will get you some awesome rankings on Google. The search engines seem to put a premium on sites like Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Squidoo and Hubpages.

In all these free or low cost traffic generation methods, it’s all about giving value to your niche community.

Leads generated in this way will be far more valuable as leads back to you – interested, highly targeted, committed and profitable.

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Jay Allyson Get Rich Lifestyle Pro Marketing Consultant http://www.JayAllyson.com

Stop Sabotaging Your Email Marketing – Email Deliverability Explained

By Tariq Ahmad in Featured

Email deliverability is a term that encompasses all the issues involved with getting your permission based emails to land in your subscriber’s inbox.   Improving deliverability involves actions that can be taken on behalf of email marketers to ensure that emails are delivered to the recipients that signed up to receive them.   The success of your email marketing campaign hinges on your ability to ensure that these mailings land in your subscribers inbox.  The ability to deliver a mailing in a subscribers inbox is almost entirely dependent on how ISPs calculate your Sender Reputation.  How they calculate your sender reputation score determines whether your mailing is received in the inbox, the junk mail folder, or even delivered at all.

Sender reputation is associated with the IP address of the mail server you are using to send messages from. ISPs score a sender’s reputation by giving different weight to various factors related to email marketing activity and then use some type of equation to determine your reputation.  In essence, your sender reputation indicates to ISP the trustworthiness of the source of the email that is being delivered.  What constitutes a trustworthy source will vary from ISP to ISP so in order to build a strong sender reputation you will need to familiarize yourself with all of the factors that ISPs look at when determining a score.

Traffic Building Strategies: 10 Ways to Get Other People to Send You FREE Traffic

By Eric Gruber in Featured

If you’re doing tasks such as search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising so you can build a steady stream of traffic on your own, you’re in for a long, hard uphill climb.

Fortunately, there’s an easier way to get loads of traffic very quickly – and for free. All you have to do is leverage other people’s traffic and resources.

Here’s how…

1. Be a Guest Blogger — Some bloggers solicit guest articles, in which case you can create a blog post and submit it for consideration. For example, my articles can be found on blogs like Cathy Goodwin’s Copy-Cat- Copywriting Blog. A great resource that will help you find bloggers who want content is: BloggerLinkUp.com
2. Submit your articles to the top, targeted websites and ezines. For example, I get traffic every day from my articles that are being found on sites like About.com, Microsoft Community Dynamics, Fast Company, Bank of America Small Business, MarketingProfs, SiteProNews and thousands more. You can get a complete, customized database of websites and ezines that you should submit articles to at: ArticleSubmissionSiteDatabase.com
3. Trade Newsletter Articles — If you like the idea of trading content, then consider trading newsletter articles with other people in your niche. Here’s a great tip for you: Look for those who also post their newsletter issues on their blogs, as you’ll get the benefit of a backlink and ongoing traffic!
4. Invite people to become your affiliate. Then provide your affiliates with articles and videos that they can use on their websites, on their blogs and in their newsletters. If you’re in front of your affiliates face all the time with new content for their readers,they’ll be more willing to promote you – and send you ongoing traffic.
5. Compile your articles and create viral, re-brandable special reports. Using a tool like ViralPDF.com, you can create a report that allows others to change the affiliate links in a report to their affiliate links. This way anyone who distributes the report has the opportunity to make money on the backend. The more money they make, the more they’ll distribute the free report, which means more free traffic for you.
6. Turn your articles into videos and promote them on sites like YouTube. You can use services like Traffic Geyser to get your videos broadcasted on hundreds of sites that your audience goes to. Now, not only do you have articles bringing you free traffic, but you also have videos working for you as well.
7. Host a teleseminar. Ask an expert in your industry to come onto your very own teleseminar. You can host as many teleseminars as you’d like for little money with services like Instant Teleseminars. Ask the experts to promote the call to their list and have everyone sign up on your own squeeze page. This way, you capture everyone’s name and email. Make sure you gettranscripts, and then turn them into articles that you can submit and get more website traffic.
8. Become a teleseminar guest. On the teleseminars, promote a squeeze page where you offer a free special report or special incentive. For example, I often promote: http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com/ where you can get 3 free article templates. From there, I have an autoresponder series, which further educates prospects on article writing and articlemarketing. And, of course, I promote the complete article template product that you can get at: StartWritingArticlesFaster.com
9. Provide thought leadership content and share information that no one else is providing. This way, others will want to Tweet and retweet about your content. They’ll share it on their Facebook pages. And, email their list.
10. Promote other people’s products in your own articles and special reports. One of my new article marketing coaching clients has a walking shoe reviews site. The first thing that came to mind was to create a special report “The 2010 Top 10 Best Walking Shoes For Your Health!” Inside this report, he’ll reveal the best walking shoe brands and why. He’ll show you how to buy the shoes online (through his partnership link so he can get money!)And, more importantly, he’ll write articles that promote the special report as well as a press release so he drives traffic to his site. He’ll also write a press release for the shoe companies to submit as well for even more exposure and website traffic.

Now, if you like implement these ideas, you will begin to get more website traffic now without spending lots of time and energy.

If you like the information I just provided then check out my new article marketing coaching program where I will personally guide you toward writing your way to profits.

Go to http://www.getarticlemarketingcoaching.com/

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Article marketing expert Eric Gruber creates online marketplace opportunities for small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now you can learn how to write your way to profits wit Eric’s new article writing and article marketing coaching program. Try it risk-free at:

http://www.getarticlemarketingcoaching.com/

The Advantages of Using PayPal As Your Shopping Cart

By Kathy Dobson in Featured

Any e-commerce application needs a good shopping cart to handle any purchases and payments for subscriptions. Of course you want the best shopping cart you can get for your blogs or websites, but there are so many options online, all promising you the world, that it can get confusing. Still wondering what a shopping cart is on website?

There are several points to consider, but the simplest description that all of us will recognize is the shopping cart in grocery stores. While that one has squeaky wheels and gets pushed up and down the aisle, the shopping cart on your website is a set of scripts that track what your customers buy so they can pay for the entire selection with one click.

All the shopping cart does is keep track of any items you have placed in it for purchase. Without a shopping cart your customers would have to pay individually for everything they want to buy. After your customers press the “Buy” button on your site, their transaction is transferred to a payment processor to collect the money owed, send it where it belongs and enables the download if required.

It’s not quite that simple, but it is a quick explanation of what happens behind the “Buy” button. There are several processes that are sending and receiving the request for payment on a mouse click that ends with the download instructions for your customer. It gets confusing when you start searching for a shopping cart for your own sites. A simple search will probably send you several hundred choices, all claiming to be the premier shopping cart for your needs.

An excellent choice would be PayPal’s shopping cart. For several reasons, using PayPal’s shopping cart will streamline your customer’s payment processes by letting you accept credit and debit cards and direct bank account payments. Some benefits for your customers include purchasing more than one item at a time and paying for them with a single click of the “Buy” button. It’s good customer service. You don’t want to irritate customers ready to spend money with you.

Other PayPal benefits for your customer include the ability to browse your entire collection of products and check out a list of what they bought before they click on your “Buy” button, which gives them the opportunity to modify the list. Ease of installation which does not require knowledge of CGI scripting is one big advantage of PayPal’s shopping cart. Opening an account is free of up-front costs and you are charged the same fees charged when you get other PayPal payments.

To find the fee schedule, check out the bottom of any page, even the log in page, for a link to “Pricing” or “Fees.” Some of the technical benefits of using PayPal’s shopping cart include being able to set shipping rates, if necessary, and tax rates. You can let your customers make donations to charities of their choice. You can easily convert your “Buy Now” buttons into “Add To Cart” buttons to make multiple purchases seamless to your customer.

Their free 410-page PDF, “Website Payments Standard Integration Guide,” has all the in-depth information you might need about using “Buy Now” buttons included. You can find a comprehensive list of services on PayPal when you click the tab, “Merchant Services.” If you click on the tab, “Products and Services,” you will find a link to the ebook. For your business records, PayPal will keep detailed transaction records on their website for your use when you need them.

You will also find details needed to integrate PayPal with your site, including how to pre-populate your customer’s sign-up forms. It might be a good idea to download their free PDF User Agreement for your records. You can find a link to the document at the bottom of almost every page on the service. Look for “Legal Agreements” and click that link. PayPal is easy to use with whatever application you need. It has been time tested for a longtime as eBay’s payment processor.

Besides being highly recognizable as something that a lot of people use already and have a comfort zone with, another undocumented benefit of using PayPal’s shopping cart is your own peace of mind in knowing that your business income is in good hands.

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Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites.

Killer Campaigns Volume Four: The Color of Branding

By Jerry Bader in Featured

Web video is a communication technique that provides a viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the most part a non issue other than the degree to which your content and delivery holds your audience’s attention; second, the cost to produce and present professional online video is far more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides the opportunity to intellectually and emotionally engage your audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not necessarily an attentive one like your website.

As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns, the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand how certain elements affect an audience.

Reverse SEO: Restoring Online Reputations

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Reverse SEO fits seamlessly within the context of your online reputation management (ORM) program.It is the quickest, most effective solution for dealing with bad press that has surfaced on the search engines about you or your company. By pushing negative listings from the front page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing, reverse SEO shields you from the damaging commentary of others.

Negative publicity online has become one of the most frustrating challenges for companies. It is typically anonymous. Names are often unattached to forum threads, blog posts, and even entire websites. Therefore,it is difficult to track and address the source of the complaint. Moreover, the growing popularity of social networking platforms has made it easier than ever for anyone with a mild grievance to give weight to their grudge. If you or your company have been the target of bad press online, it may be time to launch a reverse SEO campaign.

In this article, we’ll clarify how negative publicity gains traction within the search engines, and how it can lead to a public relations nightmare. We’ll also provide a working blueprint for executing a reverse SEO campaign and controlling the damage.

Controlling Bad Publicity With Reverse Search Engine Optimization

To appreciate why reverse SEO is effective, you should understand how negative press takes root within the top search listings in the first place. Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank pages based on a large number of criteria. If a website and its individual pages satisfy the most important of those criteria, those pages will rank well.

A lot of the bad press that targets companies (possibly even your own) is placed on websites that meet key ranking parameters in the search algorithms. That means the negative publicity can climb into the top positions and gain exposure. When people search for you or your company, they’ll see the bad press. That damages your reputation.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ORM strategy that pushes negative publicity from the top search positions. By moving the bad press off the first page of listings, reverse SEO limits its exposure and stifles its impact.

Ingredients For An Effective Reverse SEO Campaign

Like search engine marketing, reverse SEO uses a methodical, multi-pronged approach to protect your online reputation. The first step is to identify the sites and pages that contain negative publicity about your company, and are ranking for important keywords. Those keywords might include your name, that of your company, or key employees.

The second step of reverse SEO is to analyze those sites and pages for their respective ranking authority. That will help you determine the effort and tools you’ll need to use in order to move them from the first page of listings within Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A negative PR blitz that is spreading across the social networking sites is more difficult to remove than a single blog post that is on a non-authoritative domain.

The third step is to gather the necessary tools and execute your reverse SEO campaign. Utilization of optimization tools such as press releases, a new network of competing sites and blogs, social media profiles, and social bookmarking programs. Reverse SEO may also include heavy content syndication to build high-quality links. A search engine marketing specialist will have these tools at their disposal.

Reverse SEO Begins Before Negative Press Emerges

The best time to launch a reverse SEO campaign is before bad publicity appears in the search engines. This is due to the way that the pages link. A page will rank well within the search engines if there are enough thematic links pointing toward it. However, once it ranks, it will gain exposure. That exacerbates the problem.

Negative press can spread rapidly as people attach the press to their own blogs, sites, forums, and social media accounts. That creates a growing portfolio of links pointing toward the damaging press, cementing its position in the top listings. It becomes more difficult to address. By launching a reverse SEO campaign upfront, you can prevent the negative publicity from gaining exposure in the first place.

Protect Your Online Reputation With Reverse SEO

Reverse SEO should play a key role in your online reputation management program. It is far too easy for unsatisfied customers, resentful employees, lazy journalists, and malicious competitors to tarnish your name. And when it happens, it is usually done under the cover of anonymity. Anonymity makes the complaint or grievance impossible to address in private.

Launch your reverse SEO campaign now – before trouble strikes and the damage begins to gain momentum in the search engines. In a year’s time, you’ll be glad you did.

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Rostin Ventures principals have extensive experience in restoring reputations online, using Reverse SEO among other tactics to provide positive Online Reputation Management Services (ORM Services). When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, Rostin Ventures can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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