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Google Adsense May Be King But There are Other Options

By Merle in Advertising

When it comes to making money with a website, one of the most popular methods is running text and/or image ads on various pages. It’s referred to as contextual advertising and “inline ads”. Text or image ads are shown which match the content of the pages. Inline ads appear as highlighted words on the page when the visitor hovers over highlighted text on the page. Ads appear in small boxes. Contextual ads are often displayed to the right or left of website copy, or as blocks within sections of the text. The ads shown are related to the content of each individual page. As visitors click on these links, you earn cash.

Probably the largest and most used of the contextual ad programs is Google’s Adsense. Google really is a giant when it comes to the Internet, and their talents go far beyond just being a search engine. Adsense is used by many site owners to bring in a monthly income.

If you’re interested in running Adsense ads, first you’ll need to apply and get approved. Once approved for one site, you can place Adsense on any other site that you own. You can decide to run only text ads or choose from image and text. Various sizes are offered, and you can custom select colors to match the look of your site. Once the code is generated, you paste it on your HTML pages where you want the ads to appear. Simple & easy.

But what happens if you’re not approved by Google, or for some reason your Adsense account were to be terminated? What would you do then? There are other ad network options out there and I’ve gathered some of the best alternatives together here.

Before signing up for any ad program, make sure you read their terms of service and any requirements to make sure it’s a good fit for your website. Also, review the payment options so you’ll know how and when you can expect to be paid. Let’s review:

1) Text-Link-Ads.com: http://www.text-link-ads.com/

Once your site is approved, you insert the code on your page and they sell simple text ads that appear on your site. You have final say over any ads being published. Payments are made via Paypal or Clickbank. You receive 50% of the sale price for each link they serve up. This ad network is acceptable to be run on the same page as Google Adsense as this is not considered contextual advertising.

2) Adbrite: http://www.adbrite.com/

A variety of ad formats to choose from. You can run text ads, banners, inline ads or even full page ads. You can choose to approve or reject ads before they appear on your site. Pays monthly with the default minimum check amount of $100.00. Once your site is approved, ads will appear within 24 hours of your pasting the code. Adbrite has no policy against using other ad networks on your site at the same time.

3) Kontera: http://www.kontera.com/

Contextually relevant ads and ad units which are linked to keywords on your web page. Ads displayed will match the content of your site. For your website to be approved it must be in English, be content rich with more than 50 words per page. You can run text, image, billboard, and video ads.

4) Quigo.com: http://www.quigo.com/publishers.html

Quigo offers content-targeted advertising to those with strong traffic. Publishers with 500,000 or more monthly page views are encouraged to apply. Once approved, simply copy and paste the code.

5) Yahoo Publisher Network: http://publisher.yahoo.com/

Works very similar to Google’s Adsense program. You design your own ads, choosing colors and formats, then paste some code on your page. You’ll be paid per click. Advanced ad targeting and display capabilities can sometimes improve your results. You can choose to be paid via Paypal once your earnings are $50.00, or a check when you hit $100.00.

6) Chitika.com: http://chitika.com/

A full service online ad network which serves over two billion monthly impressions across more than 30,000 websites. Chitika ads are not contextual and can be run on the same page as Adsense. Twenty-four different ad sizes are available. Payment is via Paypal once your account is at $10.00, or a check when you reach $50.00.

7) Miva: http://tinyurl.com/oha28n

Miva offers a wide variety of ad formats to choose from: content ads, inline ads, search ads. You’ll be paid on a per click basis. Payments are made monthly by check or Paypal once your balance reaches $25.00. You can also block competitor ads from appearing on your site.

AffiliatesGarage.com: http://www.affiliatesgarage.com/

A different type of ad network which allows you to display affiliate ads in an “Adsense Style”. You can run Clickbank and Paydotcom text ads on your site or blog and earn up to 75% commission.

9) Bidvertiser.com: http://www.bidvertiser.com/

Display text ads on your website and let advertisers bid against each other. Ad formats are skyscrapers, banners, rectangles, buttons. They even have ads for your RSS feeds. Payout is monthly via Paypal once your balance is $10.00. This one pays on a cost per click basis.

10) AmaSense Ads: http://www.amasenseads.com/

This service allows you to create Google Adsense styled ads for Amazon products. Different ad formats are available which makes it easy to integrate into your site. Amasense can also be used side by side with Google Adsense without any problems.

As ads are clicked on, you earn a percentage of the product which is paid by Amazon depending on the type of product that is bought. You must have an Amazon associate account first before signing up. To get one go to https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/

As you can see Adsense is not the only game in town when it comes to running ads on your site. If you have multiple sites, you may want to use one of the services mentioned above, then test, to see which one is a better earning opportunity. You might be surprised at what you learn.

It’s against Google’s terms of service to run another contextual ad service on the same page as Adsense, but there are exceptions to the rule. Most of the services above will tell you if you can run their ads alongside Adsense.

If your websites are mainly information based, network advertising is an excellent way for you to earn an income with little effort on your part. No matter if you use Adsense or another service, it just makes for good dollars and cents.

Merle’s Mission Blog- “Rants, Raves and Random Acts of Kindness” a self proclaimed “Internet Junkie” with a passion for net marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking. An avid Blogger and writer with several niche sites to her credit. Find out more at http://merlesworld.blogspot.com/

Building a Loyal Subscriber List

By Byron Coke in Advertising

When it comes to Internet marketing, the money is in the list. A list is a collection of email addresses. The only ethical way to build a list is to utilize a double opt-in process. What this means is that when someone provides you with their email address, they receive a confirmation email making certain they intended to subscribe to your service.

The reason double opt-in is important is two-fold. First, there are unscrupulous people who will enter the email addresses of people they know and subscribe them to newsletters, offers, etc. that they have no desire to receive. This might be done as a prank or it could be done to harass someone.

By requiring a person to click on a link to confirm their subscription, they are stating that they have personally subscribed to your offer and do indeed want to subscribe.

Secondly, double opt-in offers some protection to you. Oftentimes people forget that they have subscribed to something. When they receive it, they mark it as spam or it ends up in the ‘Junk’ folder. If you receive multiple spam complaints, you could be blacklisted from sending out bulk mailings. If you use double opt-in, you can show proof to your ISP provider that the person, who claimed you spammed them, did indeed sign up for your newsletter.

A double opt-in system sends the confirmation letter the instant someone subscribes. This helps them to remember that they subscribed to your service. Once they click on the confirmation link, they will receive a second message letting them know their subscription has been confirmed.

When using email subscription services, you have the ability to include whatever message you would like. If people are subscribing to your newsletter, you would be wise to send them a thank you message and let them know when they can expect to receive your next publication. You should also include a link to the URL of your newsletter archive.

Capturing a Visitor’s Email Address

One of the easiest ways to begin building a customer list is to offer a free newsletter subscription. Chances are good that you have subscribed to an electronically delivered newsletter.

Newsletters are also referred to as ezines. Generally, they are sent to subscribers on a weekly, bi-monthly or monthly basis. A few newsletter publishers send out their newsletter daily. Daily newsletters generally offer a quick message such as a motivational quote or a business tip.

Generally, a newsletter consists of one to two articles; a ’soft’ advertisement; and links to information on your website or other beneficial resources. The content should be current and not readily found elsewhere.

When you publish a newsletter on a regular basis, you establish yourself as an expert in your field. You also keep your company name (or your own) in front of potential customers. When they need your services or products they will think of you because you have provided them with beneficial information and helped them solve a problem.

Keep in mind that most of the people who subscribe to newsletters receive dozens of newsletters each week. If you want them to read yours on a regular basis, you need to make certain that your newsletter stands out above the rest.

When composing your newsletter keep it concise and include beneficial information. Stay on topic and be consistent. If you tell your subscribers that your newsletter will be in their inbox each and every Wednesday; make certain that it arrives on time.

Do not use your newsletter as a sales letter. While it is okay to include a short ’soft’ advertisement for your product or service; the purpose of the newsletter is to provide beneficial information to the readers and keep your name in front of them on a consistent basis.

It’s a good idea to create a web page that details the information in your newsletter. When possible you should post each issue of your newsletter directly at your website. On the information page you can include links to each issue so potential subscribers can review what you offer.

You also want to provide them with an incentive to subscribe to your newsletter. You can give them a free report, ebook, or offer a one-time discount when they order a product from you. This incentive needs to be something that will benefit them.

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Byron Coke - In ‘The Honest Marketer‘ you will learn exactly how to build a loyal list. This valuable e-book will take you by the hand and provide you with instructions and resources to help you build a customer list in 90 days.

To Sell Information Products Online, You Must Give Information Away

By Thomas Christopher in Advertising

If you want to sell “info products” online and make a significant income, you need to give away free information. Don’t misunderstand “give away”. All human interactions are built on exchanges. “To give away information” means to exchange it for something other than money. You exchange the information for a relationship that allows you to keep in touch with your prospects and customers. It’s a common relationship marketing strategy.

The way it works is this: a large income comes from repeat sales. Repeat sales come from relationships. On the web, relationships come from email lists and positive interactions with the people on the lists. Email lists and positive interactions come from giving away information.

You need to have a relationship to somebody to sell to him or her. You have to establish a relationship of trust. Once you have enticed somebody to your web site, you can establish at least a brief relationship on your “pitch page” by telling your story, being honest about some shortcomings of your product, and including many endorsements from satisfied customers.

But consider: you gone through all the trouble to entice people to your page, and you gone through a lot of effort to make them feel confident in you. Suppose they don’t buy the product immediately, which is typically the case. You have expended all that effort for nothing. Remember, you need half a dozen or a dozen interactions with most people before they are willing to buy. And even suppose they buy your product. If they just go away, you have lost all the good work you put into establishing a relationship in the first place. You don’t have a chance to interest them in related products.

It’s always easiest to sell to people you’ve sold to before and who liked what they bought from you. It’s easy to sell to people who know you and are comfortable with you, even if they haven’t purchased anything yet.

Although you can make some money from selling single items to people, it is clearly advantageous to build relationships so people will keep coming back to buy more.

Since you must be in touch with your customers and prospective customers repeatedly, you need an email list.

You want to get prospective customers’ email addresses, but what possible reason do they have for giving them to you? To get prospective customers on your email list, you have to give them something that they want. You can entice them to your squeeze page — the page on which you ask for their email — by offering them information that would help them solve a problem or fulfill a desire. They give you their first name and email, and you email them the information that you promised.

You must keep emailing them to maintain the relationship, but you can’t email them hard core sales pitches. A sales pitch is not a relationship. Indeed, spam emails are sales pitches outside of relationships.

So if you must contact them repeatedly, what do you send them? The only way you’re going to sell any products is if those products solve problems or fulfill desires. The only reason they got on your mailing list in the first place is that you offered them something to help them with the problem or desire. That’s the only thing you know that they’re interested in. So obviously you should send them more suggestions on how to solve the problems and fulfill their desires. To be a commercial success, you must balance giving them useful information against not giving them all the benefits that they will gain from your products.

So both to get an email list and to maintain positive interactions with the people on the list, you must give away information. Giving away information leads to relationships, relationships lead to repeat sales, and repeat sales lead to significant income online.

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A growing collection of ecourses and ebooks showing speakers, writers, and self-employed professionals how to “monetize” the web is available at the Online Money-making Opportunity web site. The collection is being gathered, and partially written, by Dr. Christopher, a Colorado public speaker and seminar leader.

How I Learned to Twitter in 7 Weeks

By Adrian Dayton in Advertising

I stumbled onto Twitter as a marketing tool completely by accident. I was looking for a way to promote a book I’m working on, and a friend suggested that I do two things: Start a blog and get on Twitter.

“What is Twitter? I don’t get how will it help me promote my book to tell people what I am having for breakfast,” I replied. “It would take me too long to explain, just try it out,” he said.

What follows here is a week-by-week review of how I learned that Twitter can be an important business-development tool for lawyers and law firms.

Week 1: Signing up The sign-up at Twitter. com was just like everything else. I needed to add a picture but luckily, I was still holding on to the picture used for my attorney bio, so I uploaded that. A bio. Usually I leave them blank, but this one was limited to 150 characters, so I wrote: “Father, husband, attorney, and aspiring author. Follow me as I work to get published.” I was pretty happy with myself, it was a perfect bio for someone trying to get published. After I finished my profile, Twitter suggested that I start following a bunch of famous people like Ashton Kutcher and Shaquille O’Neal. Was it the real Shaq? Turns out it was. These famous people have almost 80,000 people following them, and the truth is I just didn’t get it.

Week 2: I start following people I needed help finding some publishers to submit my manuscript to, so I used the Twitter search function. I searched using the term “publisher” and turned up about 50 results. So I started following all 50 of them. Some were small publishers, some were big, but the cool part was that they were all posting stories and links all about writing and publishing, one of the articles was “10 Things Every Author Should Do Before Submitting a Manuscript.” This was good stuff, exactly the types of things I needed to learn in my situation. I also realized that, as I started following people, the majority of them followed me back. Now I had more than 30 followers. I was feeling pretty good.

Week 3: A fortuitous connection Some total stranger was asking about my book, this was great. So I explained my book to him, and we chatted back and forth using Twitter’s Direct Messages, which are kind of like an e-mail message or private messages on Facebook. He was an author who has self-published in the past, and he gave me the phone number of one of the gurus of self-publishing. Out of the blue, I call this guy up, and he takes an hour and talks to me. He gives me advice and shares a few contacts with me.

Week 4: Spreading the message When someone shares an interesting link to an article on Twitter or shares a good quote, it gets repeated. This is called a “retweet.” I noticed that whenever I posted articles, they never got retweeted. Why not? Because they weren’t interesting enough. So I started paying attention to the types of articles that were retweeted. Usually they announced breaking news or shared really interesting content on blogs, so I started trying to think of something to post on my blog that might garner some interest. I posted a satirical response to an article one of my buddies from law school posted, and it spread like wildfire, or at least like a small brush fire. I had 170 unique visitors to my blog in just an hour or two in response to that one post. That was fun but, more importantly, it made me realize the power of Twitter. Here I was with fewer than 100 followers, and my message spread well beyond that circle.

Week 5: My first corporate client “Does anybody know an attorney that practices contract law?” “Yeah, that’s actually what I do, what do you need?” I replied suspiciously. “My friend needs some legal advice about a contract, could you talk to her?” “Sure, send me a direct message with her contact into.” After exchanging e-mail addresses and a few phone conversations, my firm had a new client. All our communication was exchanged over the phone and e-mail, and the retainer and payment were paid by credit card. It was so easy, it made me realize that maybe there was more to Twitter than just promoting books. Maybe I could use Twitter to find clients. You see, Twitter functions like a giant cocktail party where thousands of conversations are going on simultaneously. You can listen in on any conversation you please, you just simply need to “follow” the individuals having the conversation. Unlike two other social networking sites, Facebook and Myspace,you don’t need to be accepted as someone’s “friend” to listen in on their conversation. For example, if MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice (both of whom are on Twitter) are having a Twitter conversation, then you may listen in if you have a Twitter account- you can even try to add your own clever enough comment or question to be included in their discussion.

Week 6: Automated searches Using the free program Tweetdeck, I set up searches so that every time someone mentioned “contract law” on Twitter, from anywhere in the world, their post was filtered through a search that arrived instantly on my computer. I soon learned how to create an alert that would send me an e-mail or text message any time the term “contract law” was mentioned in a Twitter post. That allowed me to respond in real time. Return for a second to our cocktail-party analogy. Here you are at this gigantic cocktail party, and you overhear a conversation about contract law. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you are looking for a corporate attorney. Could I recommend someone? And like that, a new relationship is created that is specifically targeted. Here are a few of the comments I saw posted on Twitter after setting up my search: “I urgently need an immigration attorney, can anybody recommend one?” “My friend is getting a divorce, can anybody recommend an attorney?” “Does anybody know a NY attorney I can ask a malpractice question to?”

Week 7 and beyond: A world of opportunity I have been on Twitter for 14 weeks. I have a large following now, but more importantly, I have learned some amazing tools that are helping me to expand my zone of influence beyond just Western New York. Every day I see potential leads- some of which I pass on or have to ignore because they are outside of my area of expertise. There are some 12 million users of Twitter now, mostly highly educated people in urban centers, and they are talking about every single legal topic imaginable. My recommendation for any lawyer? You just need to jump in and give it a try.

About the Author: Adrian Dayton is an attorney who was recently admitted to practice law in the state of New York. He is also an author awaiting publication of his first book “The Year of 12 Virtues.” He can be found on Twitter @adriandayton or at his website http://adriandayton.com/blog/

Lead Management Software, The 5 Mistakes That Kill Sales

By Bill Rice in Advertising

In today’s business climate it’s no secret for the need of a strong customer base and to keep attracting new ones. Yes, we all want more customers with less leads. This is a strategy that greatly improves your profit and saves your company from throwing away money for marketing. Bringing in customers with less leads is key in this climate. Companies are throwing away opportunities every day. If you want to win more deals its important to use proper sales management to increase your sales numbers! It’s important to fix these gaps in your sales process to put you on top!

Here are 5 common lead management mistakes that should be fixed to increase sales performance:

1. Email Doesn’t = CRM Software

This is unquestionably the top killer of sales leads. Email is a communication tool. Meant for short-term discussions or collaborations, not sales account management. It is not a tool to build sales relationships, with hundreds of clients, over numerous years.

Fact: the human brain can only manage so much information.

Your attempts at remembering to follow-up and diligently stay on top of hundreds of prospects and customers is a guaranteed failure. Real sales performance needs a system that will routinely automate some contacts and remind you to reach out personally on a regular basis.

2. One Call Close are Unlikely

It is certainly the stuff of sales legend, that Boiler Room like close. The real sales pro’s understand that this ranks up with winning the lottery. So, if you hit it be happy, but don’t expect to pay your bills and feed yourself playing that game.

This is why a disciplined process of following up, on all prospects, is critical to success. Industry surveys show that the average lead takes a minimum of 5-7 contacts to close and generally requires 30-60 days. So, don’t get frustrated and toss out that two week old lead–nurture it.

3. Stop Picking Threw Leads

The Call of the Wild fouls this one up too, our primal nature lures us to the biggest fish (whale) of the freshest meat (new lead). Two notoriously bad choices.

We can’t pick the right leads! We invariably gravitate to our biases, which is typically counter productive to our sales numbers.

Grabbing for the brass ring (tackling only the biggest accounts or loan amounts) and neglecting the opportunity to land a few small ones along the way, is the perfect example. Your sales management system should help you create an ideal lead profile for each of your sales agents. You will be amazed at how different your “perfect lead” looks from your “preferred lead.”

4. Start to Value Your Leads

Are you trashing valuable non-responsive customers? More so than ever, leads need to be effectively nurtured. Challenging economic conditions slows everyone’s buying decisions. Stay top of mind, so you will be first in mind when the pain or the need becomes right for the big buy.

This doesn’t mean just throwing all your old leads into the autoresponder. Smart sales people build a detailed follow-up plan that includes email, mail, and telephone. And don’t forget the value at each of those touch points–an interesting article or report, an example of success, or best practices session.

5. Get to the Next Lead!

Sales usually always comes down to the numbers.

How many times do we spend too much time organizing or getting ready to do something? The best strategy in most cases is to do as my Dad was found of saying, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”

Simply getting onto the next lead will produce more sales than any other strategy. Get To Your Leads Now!

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Increase your sales performance with Lead Management Software and start converting more leads. Generate more sales with the art of Social Selling.

Coop Advertising Enables Advertisers To Get More Promotion With Fewer Dollars

By Trey Pennewell in Advertising

Coop Advertising Enables Advertisers To Get More Promotion With Fewer Dollars

Co-op advertising has been around for as long as there has been print advertising, and it continues strong even in today’s digital world of television and online advertising. Read this article to learn more about cooperative advertising and how you can use it to accelerate the growth of your offline or online business.

Examples Of Modern Coop Advertising

Co-op advertising is a standard advertising practice utilized by manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers or distributors to get their products highlighted in regional and local advertising.

Probably the most common form of Coop Advertising that you will be personally familiar is with amusement park advertising. Nearly every amusement park across the country does a lot of coop advertising campaigns with the soft drink companies or snack food companies.

If you think about the local amusement park in your part of the country, you will realize that the amusement park in your area frequently suggests that you can save $5 on the ticket price of the park - IF you bring in a Coca-Cola or Pepsi can.

The soft drink companies enjoy the endorsement of their products by the amusement park companies and the amusement companies get extra special pricing on product purchases. But more importantly, since the advertising specifically mentions both the amusement park and the soft drink product, the soft drink company will help offset the cost of the advertising campaign by jointly paying for the advertising with the amusement park company.

Grocery Store ads are another great example of co-op advertising at work. Whenever you open the grocery store ad in your local newspaper and see specific name-brand products featured in the ad, chances are very good that the manufacturer paid part of the cost of the newspaper advertisement or insert to have its product featured in the ad by name.

Extend Your Advertising Reach

As a small business owner, one of the most important keys to success will be the advertising put forward to promote your business. But when looking at the real cost of some advertising, it might seem that your business does not have enough money available to bring the advertisements to life.

But, if you take the time and make the effort to discover the scope of available coop advertising, you will soon realize that you can frequently get up to half of your advertising bill paid by third-party companies.

Honestly - manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers and distributors set aside billions of dollars every year to help promote their products through coop advertising programs. In fact, depending on the coop advertiser, funds are available for television, radio, print, and online advertising, up to and including display listings in phone directories.

Think about your local tire store. Often times, the tire store will highlight a specific “brand” of tires in its advertising, such as Firestone, Michelin or another brand. The tire company benefits handsomely in brand recognition and overall sales of their product line, when the local tire shops highlight its brand over another in its local advertising.

If you want to explore the multitude of available opportunities in coop advertising, we recommend “The Co-op Advertising Programs Sourcebook ™”, which is the definitive source of (4,000+) companies that have co-op advertising programs available. At $619, the cost is a bit on the high side, but a single advertising co-op deal could easily compensate you for the cost of this book, which can be found at: http://www.co-opsourcebook.com

How Co-op Advertising Works

As with any type of advertising, there are always advantages and disadvantages in using it.

The advantages of coop advertising include:

• You can use the coop money to either reduce the cost of your advertising or to extend the amount of advertising you can employ for the promotion of your business.
• You can use the coop money to improve the quality or design of your advertising - for example, full-color ads or inserts in your local newspaper.
• You can extend your reach and advertise in mediums that you may never have considered previously, such as telephone directories or television ads.

The disadvantages of coop advertising include:

• Often, the co-op advertiser will have certain restrictions that must be met in order for you to qualify for the co-op money. For example, you might have to restrict your advertisement to their product only, or you might have to use their creative copy in your display advertising.
• You may find time restrictions in relation to the advertising window in which the co-op advertiser might be willing to pay. For example, the coop advertiser may only support ads in the Sunday newspaper, but not mid-week advertising.
• Often, you will need to pay for the advertising in advance and be reimbursed by the co-op advertiser for their portion of the advertising cost at a later date. Many advertising co-op programs require that you send them a copy of the print advertising for verification, before they will issue a check for their portion of your advertising bill.

Even with the disadvantages associated with co-op advertising, the disadvantages are usually so small as to make them non-consequential in your decision to use co-op advertising. After all, if the other guy is paying up to half of your advertising bill, then the other guy’s restrictions seem a small price to pay to have him help you advertise your business.

Online Co-op Advertising

Offline businesses have been slow to adopt many online advertising methods, simply because it is more difficult for them to measure the direct impact of their advertising dollars.

One could speculate that perhaps I should be able to get some co-op advertising dollars for having written this article, since I mentioned Firestone and Michelin tires, and Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola by name. But the truth is that co-op advertising has not been available on scale in the article marketing industry until just recently.

With the recent launch of http://www.SponsorArticles.com a system that provides a method to join advertisers in co-op article marketing has been made possible.

The system put forward by Sponsor Articles is unique in that it permits article writers to submit articles for free, and then it permits Sponsors to bid for the right to sponsor the cost of article distribution through several article distribution companies, in exchange for shared advertising within the articles’ resource box.

To put this in perspective, a small business owner who writes articles for the promotion of his or her website will submit articles to the system, knowing full well that a sponsor can add a link to the resource box, in exchange for paying the costs associated with the mass distribution of the article.

As with any co-op advertising system, costs are shared between two advertisers. In the case of the Sponsor Articles system, the small business owner will cover the time or cost investment of creating an article to promote his or her small business. And then the Article Sponsor will cover the costs of distributing the article through a number of article distribution services.

Both parties will benefit from the expanded reach of the article, with links in the resource box that point to their respective websites.

In Conclusion

Co-op advertising is alive and well for Main Street businesses, and there are programs available online that brings the power of co-op advertising to the online marketing environment as well.

For those who participate in co-op advertising, the process offers a powerful win for both parties. Both parties are able to double their advertising exposure with the same amount of advertising budget.

If you have never participated in a co-op advertising campaign before, you at least owe it to your business to explore the possibility. Some of the most successful businesses on the planet have a co-op advertising budget in place, and that available money could help accelerate the growth of your business as well.

Author’s Note: This article originally published here: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/coop-advertising/2009/03/31/

About The Author:

Trey Pennewell has been involved in the SEO and article marketing industries since 2005. You can learn more about pay for performance SEO at http://www.linksandtraffic.com/ or article marketing at http://www.thephantomwriters.com/

Optimize Your Landing Pages, Increase Your Sales

By Paul Marshall in Advertising

One of the newest and most talked about Internet marketing strategies these days is Landing Page Optimization. Your Landing Page Design can make or break your conversion rate.

All the search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising isn’t going to create the sales you want with bad landing pages. You’d be just wasting your time and money.

And the truth is that almost EVERY page on your website is a landing page, except for your Privacy Policy, Terms of Use or Service, and possibly your About page.

I’ve seen websites more than DOUBLE their conversions with landing pages that are properly designed to convert traffic to conversions…those opt-in sign ups and direct sales.

Think about it — doubling your sales without increasing your PPC advertising or without increasing your SEO efforts! How much money could that put in your pocket?

When you take advantage of strategies like that, that’s when you start beating out your competition!

What’s Landing Page Optimization All About?

When searchers come to our websites from the search engines, they are in a path from one website to another.

We have to interrupt that process, drawing these searchers into our website and into our story.

We must balance the connection with our visitors and make an emotional connection, while offering them real substance, as well.

We MUST answer these questions:

1. where am I?
2. what can I do here (what is your offer)?
3. Why should I look here and STAY rather than click away? This MUST be answered in the top 4 to 4/12 inches of your Web pages (above the fold)

How Do You Begin Optimizing Your Landing Page Design?

First, start by clearly explaining what you want your website visitors to do and WHY they should do it.

Why should they buy from you or opt-in for future contact? What’s in it for them?

Why should they choose you over other websites they can visit? What separates you from your competition?

Essentially, what’s your Value Proposition?

You should be able to clearly explain the advantage to your website visitors in 2 to 3 short sentences.

Right now, if you’re not sure exactly how to describe your Value Proposition, you’re surely NOT alone! The great majority of people I coach with their websites are in the same boat, when they start out.

My suggestion: Start brainstorming and making good notes. It also helps to have the input of a Internet marketing consulting coach outside your business, who can help you clearly define and explain what you offer your website visitors in a compelling manner, without using your industry jargon and lingo.

Reduce Anxiety from Your Purchase and Opt-in Processes

Anxiety can also be defined as fear or concern. Now, you can never have a anxiety-free website, if you sell a product or service or if you seek an opt-in email address.

Anxiety occurs in opt-in sign up processes, when providing an email address. When making a purchase, providing credit card information causes anxiety.

But how can you REDUCE the anxiety to the least level possible?

There are many techniques you can follow to accomplish this.

One of the best examples is to post your Privacy Policy page link right next to your sign up button, for your opt-in contact. This helps reassure your visitors you aren’t selling their email address and will generate a higher opt-in conversion rate than not posting your privacy policy, all other things equal.

Other anxiety reducing techniques are:

1. emphasize credit card security when ordering
2. offer pricing guarantees
3. deal with product | service quality concerns with guarantees and third-party certifications, awards, etc.

These techniques must be used at the exact point where the anxiety occurs.

Next, Reducing Friction from Your Web Pages

Friction can also be defined as annoyance and irritation. To maximize your sales and opt-in conversion rate, you need to minimize the friction all across your website.

Friction occurs in the prospect’s MIND, not really on the page.

It is a Psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process.

So, how can you reduce friction?

One way is to limit fields to the minimum number needed for both purchase and opt-in forms. Friction = Length and Difficulty.

While space here limits a complete discussion of all the techniques you can take advantage of, another way to limit friction is to make your landing page design take advantage of natural eye movement, working with it, rather than against it. You’ve got to be careful with multi-column designs.

Wrapping it Up

Consider the value to you of an Internet marketing consulting coach, who can train you to maximize your landing page design, do-it-yourself and at an affordable cost.

Using Landing Page Optimization techniques will help you potentially DOUBLE your conversions…your direct sales and opt-in sign ups…without increasing your PPC advertising expenses and without requiring higher SEO rankings.

This is real money we’re talking about.

This could turn out to be the KEY element missing from your Internet marketing plan.

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Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall knows how to help you market on a budget. He’s an Internet Marketing Consulting Coach offering affordable Landing Page Optimization (LPO) services and d-i-y LPO Coaching. Receive your Free Introductory Consultation, just visit Strategic Web Marketing.net today!

List Building - 10 Super Fast Ways To Build Your Opt-in List

By Titus Hoskins in Advertising

It is a well known fact that the key to successful online marketing comes from building a well targeted and responsive opt-in email list. This is mainly because your online marketing success comes from building relationships with a large subscriber base, but just how do you go about doing this?

An opt-in list is when you are given the option to receive bulk emails that are also sent to a large majority of other people. Generally you need a person’s permission to add them to such a list otherwise it will be seen as spam. Regardless of what you’re promoting or selling, if you want to succeed online you need to build up your own opt-in list. Most professional marketers use double opt-in which means subscribers must fill in an opt-in form on a web page and then confirm or verify their subscription in an email sent to them. This eliminates any spam complaints.

Virtually everyone uses email so it won’t be too hard to build your list if you use some of the simple tactics listed below. Keep in mind, using an opt-in contact list should have a place in everyone’s marketing plan as it is cheap, fast, and still more effective than other outdated methods of promotion and marketing. This is because a large majority of the people who are making money on the Internet are those who have built up a large opt-in list or are using strategic follow-up emails in their marketing. They will have refined, looked after and built up a trust with the people on their list who they can contact in the future.

If you need any help with how to approach compiling your opt-in email list then below are 10 quick and sure ways of getting people to sign up for your contact list:

1. Set up an auto-responder which will automatically send out messages to your visitor. It can be set up with a series of compelling messages, which will encourage your subscribers to buy your products or join your business. Using Pop-Ups, Pop-Ins and Slide-In forms on web pages will quickly build your list. Some professional marketers make the “Close” button on this pop-up form very hard to see, so that visitors will subscribe as a means of closing out the window. Use your own judgment here, do you want to be this sneaky? It’s not exactly the best way to start a relationship, but many savvy marketers use it. This is the equivalent of “getting your foot in the door” and then these marketers follow-up with quality content to really get and hold your attention.
2. Have a concrete image or graphic of your ezine or newsletter when giving people the opportunity to sign up as this will increase your conversion rate. Your ezine or newsletter can then be sent out daily, weekly, monthly or whenever you need to send it. Relationship building is the key here because you just don’t want a list, you want a responsive list.
3. Make it real simple for people to subscribe to your opt-in email; it needs to be quick and easy in order to encourage people to do it. For example you could put a simple form in the left hand column of your websites home page and other pages if possible. Most professional marketers place their opt-in form on EVERY page of their site.
4. Use social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter… truth be told all of these sites are only glorified List Builders; make sure you’re taking advantage of them to build your list of contacts.
5. Use Forums - there are literally thousands of forums and discussion boards so all you have to do is find one that relates to your particular business and then participate in the discussion. The key is to get targeted subscribers, ones interested in your topic or subject.
6. Promote your website and yourself - this can be done through such things as article writing. This will promote your site in a way that will get your site known and recognized by more people; become an expert and people will want to get to know you and what you have to say.
7. Ezine advertising is a cost effective and quick way to attract visitors to your site in order to get more subscribers. Ezine ads can be a very cheap and effective way of building your list quickly. Many professional marketers also use co-registration strategies - this can be simply done by adding a form where your subscribers can check to subscribe to other related ezines or newsletters. You promote my list, I promote yours.
8. Have well written content - you need to ensure that your website content is well written, informative and appealing so that when people visit your site they will hopefully opt-in to your email list. Again, if you have nothing valuable to offer your visitors, they won’t join your list.
9. Always use incentives to reward people for joining your opt-in list. Enticing potential subscribers with a free report, video, article, ebook or software is still the quickest way to get subscribers on your list.
10. Provide access to “Members Only” areas of your site - this part of your website will be accessible only when people have signed up to your opt-in email list. Same can be done for articles or reports… give your visitors a good teaser and then they have to opt-in to get access to the rest.

These are just some of the ways to build your list quickly but there are countless others, especially if you have a product to sell and you can do JVs (Joint Ventures) with other marketers or big-name Gurus. Then using a “Squeeze Page” to collect contact information to quickly build your list. So too is creating an affiliate program and letting your affiliates build your list for you!

Just remember, building up the perfect opt-in email list won’t happen over night but by following the above steps it will build quickly. Just make sure that as your opt-in list grows, you provide your users with quality content and you keep the list organized and managed in order to keep your subscribers happy and satisfied so that they will be willing to do business with you over the long term.

About The Author:

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous niche sites. If you want to learn how to make your online marketing much more effective by building your lists try here: list building ecourse Copyright (c) 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached. To learn more Internet Marketing Tactics try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com

The Attention Grabbing Ads

By Kaye Z. Marks in Advertising

When you are flipping through a magazine how much attention, do you usually give to an advertisement? Quite often while I’m looking at a magazine I’ll just flip right past the pages with the ad, giving it only a second or so of my attention, if that.

This does not mean I never pay attention to magazine ads. Quite often I will stop to give one ad or another more of my attention. Why? Because in those few seconds I glanced at it the ad managed to make me want to see more. How did it accomplish this? The image.

A catchy headline is always effective, true, but not as the only hook. If a headline is large enough and short enough I might be able to take it in enough during those few seconds to want to read more, but quite often, my mind does not pick up any of it. An image can achieve what a headline is incapable of.

Images register in the mind a lot faster than any sentence ever could. What this means for your color printing is the need for an eye grabbing picture.

I cannot tell you any one kind of image that will always work because there simply is not one. Every product is going to have a different kind of style or design that best suits it and best grabs a person’s attention.

There are some pitfalls you should be careful about avoiding.

Unlike words, an image is open to a certain amount of interpretation. You can have a specific meaning within the image in relation to your product and be completely unaware of another possibility that might hurt you more than help. Be sure to do the right kind of research on whatever your picture is going to be before releasing it in order to avoid these possibly negative interpretations.

Another factor is how prominent your company name or logo is within the picture. Quite often, a company will spend so much of its energy on creating a unique, eye grabbing image, and then shove their logo into the bottom corner of the ad. It might grab my attention, but that does not mean I will come away being aware of whom the company is, or even what product they are trying to sell me.

I have seen quite a few ads before with interesting images. After looking over them I cannot fathom who the company is or even what kind of products they sell because too much time was spent on making something catchy without considering how it relates to the company.

The image is merely meant to grab their attention. An ad needs to have more than just the image if it is going to convey a useful point to the person looking at it.

Given how little time is spent on any given ad, if you want people to really look at yours you have to use color printing to create that unique, vibrant image. Just be sure that you are doing more than just making them linger. Seize the opportunity, and make something people will remember for days afterwards, along with the name of your company.

About the Author: Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of developments in commercial color printing industry and how these improvements can benefit small to medium-scale business. Visit http://www.justprint.com for information.

How To Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) To Send Traffic Anywhere You Want!

By Riley West in Advertising

Do you think anybody is going to argue about the fact that Traffic (people coming to your web page) is the most important component of direct selling via the Internet?

When I first started in this business of Internet Marketing, I didn’t think of traffic. It was like when I came into this business I checked all my previous training at the door! And this from a guy who spent over 30 years creating traffic to retail stores.

Go figure. I guess I came to this form of selling with a totally open, and, in some cases, blank, mind.

But Traffic IS the most important thing. It doesn’t much matter how you get the traffic as long as it’s a form of traffic called “targeted traffic”.

And that is exactly what you get when you buy traffic from the PPC Search Engines.

You probably know this already, but it is a good idea to repeat it. And that is that selling something by means of the internet has an incredibly simple formula.

Here it is…Traffic + Conversion = Sales. That’s it. Expanded for effect it would be Targeted Traffic (people) + Conversion(people purchasing) = Sales (money).

So, first things first, get traffic to your offer. But not just any old traffic…we want it to be “targeted”. What that means is that the people coming are people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

People can be “sorted” by the search terms they type in. Ingenious, isn’t it?

There are lots of ways to generate traffic but pay-per-click advertising is one of the fastest and one of the best for a couple of reasons that we’ll cover here.

Two of the most important reasons are that your visitors will be “targeted traffic” and you’ll only pay when they click and arrive at your offer!

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you have a web page with an offer on it selling free movie downloads. Automatically, one of your major keywords is “free movie downloads”.

So you go into your PPC area, and write an ad. They are little four line classified type ads and the last line of the ad is the URL you want them to go to.

Now, Google is the king of PPC and, since they are all about relevancy (the art of bringing up good search results when someone types in a keyword) Google wants relevancy for it’s sponsored ads, too. Hence the marriage of your ad and your chosen keywords.

You’d write an ad that looks like a four line classified ad with copy like this …

Free Movie Downloads/ Download Any Movie You Want Forever/ For A Small One Time Fee/ USAFreeMovieDownloads.com

You’d put the ad into an ad group with your chosen keywords at your chosen price (bid).

Let’s say you picked the keyword “free movie downloads” and agreed to pay (bid) $1 every time someone clicks on your ad and, subsequently went to your offer.

Warning: I inadvertently sent 1700 people (clicks) to a 404 error page instead of my offer due to a typo. It cost me about a thousand bucks. I don’t do that anymore.

So you turn the campaign on and start watching. The fun can begin in just a few minutes!

If you make $30 every time someone buys your offer at your web page, and you are paying one dollar per visit (click) when someone types in “free movie downloads” there is a certain ratio you are looking for.

Essentially, to be profitable, you have to pay LESS than $30 to get a sale because that’s what you MAKE on a sale. More ideally you want to pay $15 to get the $30 profit.

These little sponsored search ads are responsible for billions of dollars in highly targeted traffic and sales.

And really, doesn’t it just seem likely that someone who typed in your chosen keyword and clicked on your ad and was then transported to your offer on your web page would probably buy? Yes, it does to me, too.

You can bet on it. In fact, that’s exactly what you are doing, but they don’t call it gambling. They call it advertising. That’s business.

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Riley West can show you lots of ways to earn money online! From PPC to article marketing to web page offers… see it all at Riley’s blog now and receive a FREE MONEY MAKING PDF and two Ebooks you can’t find anywhere else. Go to :=> http://www.makinganinternetmarketer.com

© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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