Article Categories

• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Branding
• Business
• Cloud Technology
• Ecommerce
• Email Marketing
• Facebook
• Google
• Keywords
• LinkedIn
• Linking Strategies
• List Building
• Local Search
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• Mobile Applications
• Page Rank
• Pay Per Click
• RSS
• Sales Copy
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Security
• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SPAM
• SPN Featured Articles
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Office/Telecommuting
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Web Development
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• WordPress
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Editor's Corner
• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• John Sylvester
• Kalena Jordan
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

Five Important Rules For Affiliate Marketing Success

By Ricky Weber in Featured

Making money with affiliate marketing can be a great solution for people who do not want to deal with the hassles of setting up their own website, yet still want to be able to generate income on the internet.

Creating your own affiliate marketing business does not need to be as hard as you think, and one of the most important parts of being successful with this type of business is to pick the right product that you can form a partnership with and begin promoting.

This type of affiliate marketing business model means that you are referring customers and sales to another company in exchange for a certain commission. This can be very convenient if you do not have the extra time to commit to customer service and other essential tasks for maintaining your own business.

Below you will find five rules that you can use to begin to see success with your affiliate marketing efforts. Following these rules can help you make sure you get the maximum return on the time and money you spend.

1. Find Out The Commission Percentage

Is this a digital product that can offer a higher affiliate commission such as 50% or higher? Or are you focusing on a physical product or e-commerce store that only pays its affiliates 10% of the total price. Depending on what you are promoting, you can sometimes make much more money from a company that sells physical products but offers a smaller percentage commission, since the overall price volume will be much higher.

2. Pick The Ideal Price Point

There may be many similar companies and products that you can choose to become affiliated with, but there will likely be some price differences with each one. Pick how high your price should be based on the supply and demand of your target market. Is this a product that provides a solution to an urgent problem? If so, then you might be able to pick a product with a higher price.

3. Only Promote One Affiliate Product At A Time

An important factor that determines your success for any business is how long you can focus and concentrate on the tasks that build your business and increase your revenue. Therefore, if you are placing your attention on trying to promote a dozen different products at the same time, then you are spreading your attention too thin and decreasing your odds of success. Pick one single good product, and stick with it until you see results.

4. Is There An Established Market For Your Product?

Some beginner affiliate marketers will make the mistake of picking their affiliate product based on their own hobbies and interests, only to find out that there is no demand for it. It is important that people are actively searching for what you are providing, even if you want to focus on a narrowly defined market segment. Make sure that there is enough demand for what you are offering that people will be willing to make a purchase.

5. Does This Product Make You Want To Buy?

What is a good way to find out how effective the sales tactics are by the product or company you are promoting? See whether or not this seems like something that you are actually willing to purchase. Depending on the nature of the product that you are affiliated with, it may even be something that you should purchase yourself before promoting it in order to find out what it is all about.

By following these five principles you should be able to maximize the amount of money that you can earn from your online affiliate marketing. Remember to keep realistic earnings expectations about your affiliate commissions, and do not be discouraged if you do not succeed at making money right away.

---

Becoming a successful internet entrepreneur and internet marketer can be challenging without the right internet marketing strategies to guide you.To find the information and tools you need to succeed as an entrepreneur, visit http://NinjaSeoMethods.com to learn about how to build an internet marketing business using search engine optimization (SEO) and other money-making strategies.

How Twitter Saved the Cupcake Nazi

By Norm Weekes in Featured

Every generation thinks they are special. Dickens’s wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” back in 1859. After the death of Jesus, many Christians thought the end of days was at hand. Some cave dwellers probably thought their generation was special because they used fire to barbecue a T-rex.

A closer truth is each generation is special in its own time and we live in special times today. In our time, we are living through a redistribution of intellectual wealth as we experience the change from the industrial age to the information age. In our time, failure to take part in the knowledge economy can lead to exclusion from economic opportunity and growth.

A couple of weeks ago I emerged from the parking garage at Oakland’s Jack London square and was surprised to find a line of people standing at a taco truck. Not only are taco trucks not usually at the Square, but the line was unusually long. I then noticed the truck had no tacos but boutique cupcakes instead. The sugar junkies were patiently waiting to pay three bucks a shot for their fix. They stood sentry waiting for their sweet guilty pleasure. The scene reminded me of the Soup Nazi episode from Seinfeld.

For those of you unfamiliar, the Soup Nazi was a gourmet soup chef with a tiny storefront site in NYC who served great soup but would serve you only if you followed his rigid decorum. Any deviation would result in a loud “No soup for you!” and a quick soup-less dismissal from his shop.

10 Top SEO Facebook Strategies

By Nina Hirasawa in Featured

Facebook is more and more becoming a “second home page” for organizations on the web and has recently developed a number of innovative options for Pages to get increased traffic through the tried and true techniques of search engine optimization. Making use of important web optimization tactics on your Facebook Page can help you to progressively acquire more Facebook devotees. Search engine optimization reveals your Facebook Page to Facebook’s total user base. In fact, Facebook has taken big steps to improve its own web optimization in recent weeks and months, increasing its own worth and creating opportunities for Page managers to benefit immediately.

Listed below are TEN SEO techniques and tactics every Facebook Page user will need to understand:

1. Decide on the Best Title for Your Facebook Page – and Don’t Ever Change It

Choosing the right identity on your Facebook Page is crucial. For instance, if your name appears too spammy, people will probably be less likely to talk about it with their associates on their own page and more likely to conceal your updates from their Facebook feed. Secondly, don’t give into the temptation to choose a completely common page title. Facebook’s intention for Pages is that they legitimately characterize businesses and brand names, as well as stars. Recently, Facebook has been disabling updates for common Pages.

Today’s Social Media Impact on Business

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

In the mid-1800s the industrial revolution replaced the mild, earthen lifestyle of the farm economy. Not since then have we seen world events come together to completely alter the economy. Small Business is now seeing changes that are completely mind-numbing. To get your product, service or site noticed, you’d better be Marketing for Search Engines (SEM) and on board with the Impact of Social Media on your Business. New technologies have led to new tools, resulting in new rules for finding out and sharing information using “The Cloud” of worldwide SAAS (software as a service) applications and databases that change content every second. So much for Encyclopedia Britannica sitting on your book shelf.

That’s B O O K S H E L F, flat board like things protruding from your walls, usually made of wood, that hold physical, hard-bound or paperback-BOOKS. Just picture a stand beneath your wall mounted flat screen TV with no electronics and you get the picture. The key question is, just How Does Social Media Help Small Business?

Interview with Ira Wolfe

In my Video Interview with Ira Wolfe of Success Performance Solutions, Ira shared a wagon load of information on the changing face of business, who’s really in control in the marketplace, adopting Social Media as a strategy, and the Holy Grail of the 4 C’s of SEM. Part 1 of the Skype interview takes a look at the history and changes that have taken place in marketing, including the 180 degree change in control that’s occurred with the coming of Internet choices and the Social Media Impact on Business that has placed the power in the hands of the consumer.

How To Advertise On Facebook – Facebook Marketing 101

By John V in Featured

An increasing number of businesses have been running direct response and branding campaigns through Facebook due to the fact that Facebook is a very popular medium with a huge number of users and page views. It is really quite easy to target internet users on Facebook however, in order to succeed it is important that you know that advertising on Facebook is fundamentally different from search engine advertising. This difference is what makes advertising on the world’s largest social media site a bit challenging.

As you probably know, when someone is searching on one of the major search engines like Google or Yahoo using a specific keyword, a related ad will pop up. The user will then click the ad (if it interests him) wherein he will be taken to another site. This is what the user expects to happen. But, when people are using Facebook, they are basically there to socialize – to look at photos, to enter their status updates, read their friends’ status updates, etc. Facebook users generally plan on staying on Facebook and do not plan on being taken away from the site by clicking on ads.

To illustrate how you can take part in effective Facebook marketing, let’s say that you are trying to promote a supplement that helps to build and retain muscles after working out. With Facebook advertising, you can target the age, gender and location of who you want your ad to be seen by. For example, if you want your ad to be seen by men who are 24 years of age in the United States who ‘like’ the gym, working out, fitness, etc., your ad will be seen by this group of Facebook users.

The ideal Facebook advertisement includes an image and a catchy phrase or statement which will grab the attention of your targeted group of Facebook users. It is very important that your ads remain fresh because Facebook ads quickly become stale which causes click-through rates to drop dramatically. Remember that you are targeting essentially the same group of people so if you are showing them the same ad day in and day out, the interest they show in your ad will dramatically drop. You can certainly sell the same supplement over the long term but you must change your Facebook advertisement regularly in order to gain click-throughs.

Considering the fact that Facebook users do not want to leave Facebook, you have to know where to send users. Sending them directly to your website is not your best option as most users will simply close that tab because they do not want to be taken out of Facebook.

This leads us to what does work well with Facebook marketing which is to send users to a Fan Page that features a ‘Buy it Now’ button. Clicking that button will take the user away from Facebook, but at this point it is all fine and good because obviously anyone clicking the ‘Buy it Now’ button is interested in making a purchase.

In conclusion, advertising on Facebook is drastically different than advertising on Google. People go to Google to connect to other information. Facebook users on the other hand do not go to Facebook to be taken to another website. Your ads must be very appealing so that users will want to click through for more information about the product you are selling.

---

This article should give you a general idea of how to advertise on Facebook. Now that you know the basics, get out there and start making some ads! Here’s a YouTube video that’s packed with more valuable information – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHK9NYmEok8

How to Boost Profit through SEO and Basic Business Principles – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Warner Carter in Featured

Perfecting SEO to gain traffic and attract customers is only half of being successful. Making money online is not just about technically tracking and managing your business on a regular basis. Many people choose to ignore cliches in business because they’re tired of hearing it. This may sound funny, but I often hear it in the SEO conventions I attend.

Gaining Profit through Basic Business Principles

Help your prospects and clients

Some successful executives always cite that “focusing on making money leads to an early death”. This may sound like another cliche, but simply looking at it shows you the plain truth: doing business is not just about making money.

You may say that we literally help people through link building, because it’s a win-win, give-and-take process. What I’m referring to is helping people outside the realms of normal SEO methods. For example, if you are an SEO Reseller, you can help your clients by giving them free training on SEO. This enables them to understand not only the basic but the technicalities of the process as well.

I have known many business owners who literally invite their prospects and clients to their internal meetings so they can learn about the goals of the industry. I also have friends who provide weekly tutorial sessions through e-mail to aid their clients (and possible competitors) and help expand the industry to a different level. Some companies are more than willing to give some unfortunate people and organizations financial aid to help them start a desired business.

Build long-term relationships

The strength and longevity of your business depend on the business partners and friends who have been with you every step of the way. Measure business longevity by looking at how your business became a bridge for other businesses to grow, by seeing how wide your network is, and by determining how much you have contributed to your market and especially to your community.

Partners strengthen and empower business. Sometimes, partnership and networks can save a sinking corporation. Try reading the business section of your national paper and you’ll see how partnerships and relationships are integral parts of every industry.

Many major companies today measure their success not with how consumers can easily recall their brand but with how they helped their industry and community.

Consider profit secondary

Frankly speaking, we all planned and started our business with the simple reason of gaining money. We all seek financial success, and we believe that we can make more money through our business. There is nothing wrong about this, but as successful people say, “Focusing on money might cost us our lives; we might end up without much time left to enjoy the fruits of our labors.” We have to balance everything; every entity in our business has its own value, whether it lies in the technical or internal aspect. As business owners, we should know where to put that value, and what should be prioritized. Always begin your business’ value in life, and everything will follow, including money and absolute financial success. Success is relative. Whether you measure it monetarily or by your contribution to your community, it always begins in valuing life.

Gaining Profit through SEO

Product Makeover

If you have been in the business for years, chances are some of your products and services need a little repackaging. Some of these may be out of style or outdated price-wise. Take time to review your product line. Separate the old items from the new items. Old items can be included in your “to be discounted and sold on sales” list.

One effective technique I’ve seen many local business owners do is incorporating keywords in their main products. I’ve seen a toothbrush named ‘Bay Area toothbrush’, and a carpet named ‘Phoenix Carpet Magic’. The technique accomplishes SEO and product branding with one method.

As a business owner, it is your responsibility to track down the trends, what’s hot and what’s not. I’ve encountered businesses that never tire of pushing outdated products to the local market, as if local consumers are unaware of the global market.

Quality service assurance

No one wants a defective product or terrible customer service. Just like in your SEO processes, one way of assuring quality service is by perfecting your anchored links, content writing, and keyword research. These three are the foundations of your SEO campaign and internal online advertising. They are your secret search tools, Google’s exact targets in crawling and indexing your website. Providing your readers with informative content is a perfect way of giving them quality service.

Aim for long-term goals

There is nothing wrong with settling for short-term, daily goals. However, planning on a long-term perspective prepares you for any struggles and challenges. Short-term goals are part of your long-term goals; don’t separate these because these are the strategic components of perfect planning.

Do not stop building links with relevant websites. Befriend other website owners instead of considering them as competitors. Share and learn ideas from them. Doing this helps you build links, gain domain authority, and expand your network. Having strong links and solid same-niche friends in your network cements your authority and SEO success.

Think the SEO Reseller way, go local and do not measure your business’ success by its size. Think of your community’s needs before anything else and always plan with longevity in mind.

---

Warner writes about SEO, Blogging, and Web Development, enjoys learning and discovering everything new, and works for Endless Rise, who provides SEO services to SEO Resellers exclusively. You can become an seo reseller today.

The FTC Begins Crackdown On Behavioral Ads – Is Your Site In The Cross Hairs?

By Chip Cooper in Featured

On March 14, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced its first behavioral advertising settlement. If your website collects behavioral data or serves behavioral ads – either directly or indirectly through the use of behavioral ad vendors – you need to understand and comply with the FTC’s notice and choice principles, or suffer the consequences.

What Is Behavioral Advertising?

Behavioral ads are based on anonymous data collected on how a user’s computer browses the Internet, including websites visited, searches made, and content read. This data is used to create a behavioral profile that is linked to a specific demographic. The ads seen by the computer’s user are tailored to the user’s interests resulting in significantly increased relevancy and sales.

Contextual ads, in contrast to behavioral ads, are based solely on the content of the specific website page the user is viewing. Because contextual ads are generally not as relevant to the user’s interests as behavioral ads, contextual ads are less effective, and therefore less
profitable.

Although behavioral data is essentially anonymous when collected, the FTC and privacy advocates are concerned that the amount and depth of some data could lead to personal identification of users. In addition, even if users are not personally identified, the enhanced data about them could rise to the level of an invasion of privacy.

The Chitka Settlement

In 2009, the FTC issued a staff report on behavioral advertising that explained the FTC’s principles regarding behavioral data. The FTC believes that its deceptive and a violation of the FTC Act to fail to provide to consumers proper notice and opt-out choice regarding the collection of behavioral data. The FTC’s settlement with Chitka, Inc. is the first settlement based on these principles.

Chitka is an intermediary between advertisers and websites that serve ads for the advertisers. To collect behavioral data, Chitka passes a cookie on users’ computers and then uses the cookie to track the users’ online behavior.

The FTC alleged in its Complaint that for over two years Chitka advised consumers that if they wanted to opt out of behavioral tracking they could click on a button titled “opt out”. Clicking the button would generate a message that read “you are opted out”. The catch according to the FTC is that the opt out lasted only for ten days, and then new cookies would be passed to consumers’ computers
resulting in tracking of behavioral data for serving behavioral ads.

In its settlement with the FTC, Chitka agreed to:

* delete all identifiable user information collected for the ineffective opt out period,
* provide consumers with a new opt out mechanism that lasts for at least five years, and
* notify consumers whose opt out was ineffective to opt out again.

Chitka also agreed to a notice and opt out procedure that could be interpreted as a blue print for what the FTC believes is generally required for all sites that collect behavioral data. This procedure includes:

* A message on the home page that reads “we collect information about your activities on certain websites to send you targeted advertisements. To opt out of [our] targeted ads, click here.”

* The “here” link points to an opt out page where the user is notified that opt out means the information would not be used for behavioral ads, the status of the opt out (in or out), and that opt out is limited to a specific browser and should be repeated if another browser is used.

* A link on any behavioral ad that reads “Opt Out?”, and that provides text when the users’ cursor hovers over the ad that reads “Opt Out of Targeted Ads”. The Opt Out? link would point to the opt out page described above.

Conclusion

The Chitka settlement clearly establishes that the FTC believes it’s a deceptive practice under the FTC Act to fail to provide notice and opt out choice regarding behavioral ads.

What’s more important is that the notice and opt out procedure agreed to in the settlement may be a clear indication of the specific procedure that the FTC requires for compliance.

---

Leading Internet and software attorney Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting Website Legal Forms with his Website Legal Forms Generator. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which legal documents your website really needs. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at http://digicontracts.com/ .

Social & Search PPC Advertising, is it One or the Other?

By Resource Nation in Featured

When you think of pay per click advertising, chances are, you instinctively think of search engines. Online social advertising still doesn’t get the credit it is deserved. Granted, social advertising is a maturing medium, Facebook advertising has only been around a few years and Twitter less than a year but the opportunities are there for marketers.

The latest annual findings from Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization indicated that paid search marketers are turning to PPC advertising on social media channels to complement and enhance their online marketing portfolio. Traditionally these portfolios were heavily weighed by search engines, then display and affiliate advertising came along, and now social media.

According to eMarketer, “More than half (52%) of companies worldwide vouched for the “moderate” or “huge” impact social media has had on their search engine marketing programs within the last year. Add that to the growing number of social media channels offering a PPC advertising model, and it’s no wonder 47% of North American companies are running PPC campaigns on Facebook, and more than a quarter (27%) are doing so on LinkedIn.

Most of the critics of social advertising claim that “buyers aren’t in the buying process when they are browsing Facebook or Twitter.” To back up these critics, many US companies still rely on traditional placements by AdWords because simply, ROI is there. Social however, is often much cheaper than search advertising giving way to new and innovative ways to target users. For instance, on Facebook you can target an ad to every Male who likes the movie Fight Club and lives in Chicago. These innovative segmenting tools are growing social advertising.

Google is seeing their search shares drop and are trying to get in the “social” search mix. Incorporating targeted messages to users based on their Google Accounts. For instance if you are a logged in to your Google account and type “urban clothing” you will likely see different search results than if you aren’t logged in. Google takes your previous search history and demographics in to account when populating these searches to make advertising more relevant and profitable.

Social ads are still maturing and for the most part remain a branding tool for many businesses. They are able to get people to recognize a brand, interacting or “liking” a page is often the main goal. You don’t want to try to give a hard sell on social advertising, (leading users to a product page), you should put a squeeze page to capture people’s interest on the respective social media site. Getting a users engagement, email, interests or thoughts are potentially more valuable long term than a one time sale.

If you are trying to decide whether to advertise exclusively on social or search, just test it! The first month, set up a tracker and determine which site is bringing more traffic, CTR (click through rate) and ROI. If your business is highly “brandable” you may be better off shifting a portion of your online marketing budget to social, however if your business is a service or requires extensive commitment, think about search. As social advertising matures, consumers may begin to embrace social media sites as a way to buy, but for now people are just there to work and play.

---

Matt Krautstrunk is an expert writer on online marketing based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as internet advertising at Resource Nation.

Flashy Websites Can Be Too Hot for Bots

By Michael Cottam in Featured

Website designers often employ technologies like Flash, JavaScript, Ajax, and Silverlight to make their sites attractive, fast, and easy to use.

While there are great reasons to use these technologies, they can create problems when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Web page content that’s wrapped in a fancy package can be difficult – or impossible – for a search engine to “see.” That means the search engine crawlers may have a hard time understanding what your page is about, and so may not index all your important pages.

The search engines may also find it difficult to follow any links – internal or external – you’ve placed in web page content rendered in Flash, Silverlight, or other technologies. That matters because search engines use your internal links to discover other pages on your site, to understand how pages on your site relate to each other, and to determine which pages on your website are more important than others.

Designers sometimes incorporate the search function for a website into their designs. That can be helpful for people, but it may pose problems for search engines trying to crawl your site. If pages on your site are accessible only from a search box, the search engine won’t be able to see those pages, because search engines don’t type keywords into search boxes to find relevant web pages.

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

Home Newsletter Archives SEO Forums Webmaster Tools Webmaster Resources Link to SPN Top SEO Tools Website Templates SPN Partners Contact Us Privacy Advertise

ExactSeek SiteProNews MetaWebSearch SPN Videos EzineHub ISEDN DropJack NewWebDirectory.com SEO-News SEO-News Forums Blog Search FreeWebSubmission SmartWebGadgets