This is not only sad, it’s also needless “practice bleeding.” Making affiliate sales is easy when you know the secret. It’s even very scientific and does have fairly predictable results.

Let’s look at what most affiliates are doing wrong, what I’ve termed “dumb affiliate marketing” and how that can be easily corrected.

Before I offend anyone, I should explain that when I use the word “dumb” I mean untargeted. I come from a military background, and I think of “dumb bombs.” Those are bombs that are dropped off of an airplane and they tumble unguided towards a target. They may or may not hit the target but once they are released they get no guidance.

A “smart” bomb often has a built in navigation system, and after it is dropped from an airplane it often flies a precise, pre-programmed route of flight to a target – often getting satellite GPS updates enroute. A smart bomb can be dropped from miles away, and be steered right though a window on a building that the pilot flying the aircraft never even sees.

Your affiliate marketing can be just as on-target when you acknowledge and harness just a little know-how.

Promoting an affiliate product no longer needs to be a gamble.

First of all, you need to tap into data that is readily available on which products are already selling. One source of this data is the blogs maintained during many affiliate sales contests. Monitor these to see how well a given product is selling, and to see if you want to invest your time and effort into setting up a protracted marketing campaign. You can market many of these products after the big initial launch is over – often with lessened competition.

I personally also rely upon my network of friends who readily share with each other which affiliate products are proven sellers. Many of us are members of a Facebook Group called “Affiliate Products Proven To Sell.” If you are on Facebook, you can join this group for free by registering at http://timic.org/APPTS

Many affiliates also struggle because they use marketing methods that are outdated, and simply no longer work. One newer method that works like CRAZY is using quality videos. You can now have CUSTOM videos created for you for under $50 each, and that includes professional voice talent. For that,

I personally use Jason Anderson’s team at: http://timic.org/ProVideos

These are not PLR videos. They are produced from scratch and are mini-commercials. Mine are 1-minute because, just like your audience, viewers of my videos have short attention spans. So, take a clue from the television industry. They’ve mastered getting the message across in 30 seconds to 1 minute. You need to do the same.

Another fact that you need to “get” – a fact most struggling affiliate marketers still refuse to acknowledge is that your promotion needs to be for just ONE product. If the purpose of a solo mailing or ezine issue is to promote a specific product, then just mention that ONE product in the email.

Without fail, when I’ve tried to promote multiple products in an email, even if they were all free, overall response rate significantly decreased. I think that it’s because when you promote several products in an email, it comes across as too desperate. Be laser focused rather than using the shotgun approach.

Many affiliate marketers fail to make sales because they promote something that they like rather than something customers are ALREADY buying. With so many great products out there, I do not believe in being the guinea pig. You should only promote affiliate products where the product owner has thoroughly tested market demand AND his conversion process.

It’s foolish to put time and effort into promoting unproven products when you can just pick the low-hanging fruit by offering your customers the products that they’ve proven to you that they want.

Given that often there are numerous affiliates for a product that’s a proven seller, you may need to differentiate yourself from all of the other affiliates. One easy way to do that is to offer a valuable, related bonus. I like using unique audio interviews or related courses as bonuses.

If you’ve taken the time to actually communicate with your subscribers and customers, your offer isn’t identical to that made by others marketing the same affiliate product anyway. Just the fact that it’s YOU, whom your clients have grown to know, like and trust, that’s marketing the product… makes it different. The difference is that purchasing through your affiliate link is less risky.

That is one of the key factors in smart affiliate marketing. Earn their trust and the sales come a lot easier. I actually have subscribers email me doing a big product launch ASKING for my affiliate link. Over the past 13 years, I have built that kind of customer loyalty. If you work at doing that, everything else will fall in place.

Now that you know the secret, it’s time to stop doing dumb marketing. If your sales aren’t what they should be start by looking at WHAT you are marketing. Is it something that your customers really want? If it is, then next look at HOW you are marketing it. Read back thought this article for tips on the profitable way to do that.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The End Of Dumb Affiliate Marketing

Sometimes it seems like the majority of online marketers change the program that they are promoting, almost as often as they are putting gasoline into their car. “Okay honey… I filled up the car today… it is time for us to find another business opportunity to promote…”

There is also another group of online marketers, who seem to make a real commitment to a specific business opportunity, but success continues to elude this group is well. The second group fails to make a commitment to a particular marketing plan that is designed to help them to achieve success. Like the first group, they change directions, as often as they put gasoline into the car.

Those who are successful online, are the kind of people who make a solid commitment to a particular business model and make a long-term commitment to a realistic marketing plan.

I am not telling you these things because I think I’m better than you… In fact, I am telling you these things because I am guilty of having done the exact same things myself.

Towards the end of 2001, I finally started making serious money online, after having spun my wheels online for more than four years, chasing one opportunity after another, until I made a commitment to a particular business model.

I managed to increase my income year-over-year, and in March of 2005, I quit my job and started working full-time online. I have continued to earn a nice living online, ever since.

My 2009 revenues were down, but primarily because I was working less than normal… In November 2008, I learned that my father was ill… I had my suspicions right away, but we did not have verification of cancer until February 2009. (Contrary to popular belief, he was a non-smoker.)

As 2008 wound down, I made a commitment to my father that if he needed any assistance whatsoever, that I would make myself available to help him. That meant, if he needed transportation to and from doctors’ appointments, I would drive the one-hour to his house, and then take him wherever he needed to go. If he needed me to come to his house to help him with anything whatsoever, I would come to his house to help him.

I made the commitment to him, and I honored that commitment to him.

My online business suffered considerably, as a result of my making that decision. But, I have no regrets… It was the right thing to do, and I am grateful that I did it.

My dad passed away in November of 2009.

I continued to miss work, through November and December of 2009, while doing those things that must be done in relation to matters of his funeral and his estate.

Just a couple weeks ago, I sat down and calculated exactly how much time I actually spent outside the office in 2009.

Not all of my absenteeism, during 2009, could be attributed directly to the time I spent assisting my father during his illness. In March of 2009, I had missed two weeks when we moved across town. My websites had also suffered a 16-day shut down in May, because I was unable to update the DNS records for my domains, when my web hosting company migrated my account to a new server. When I went to do the DNS updates, I discovered that ICAAN was in the process of shutting down my domain registrar and moving my domain registration information to a new domain registrar. Unfortunately, during a move of that type, updates cannot be made to the DNS records. So, my websites were offline until ICAAN finished its work.

All told, I missed two weeks while moving, two weeks while waiting for ICAAN to get everything moved so that I could update my DNS records, and another 12 to 14 weeks while assisting my father and taking care of the things that I needed to take care of after he passed away.

During the course of the last eight years, there has only been one year in which I was not fully committed to my business. That year was 2009. I did not walk away from my business, but I had made the decision that taking care of my family was more important than my business.

While my business, my reputation, and my income suffered tremendously in 2009, due to my frequent absences and slow responses, the commitment that I had shown my customers in previous years helped my business survive 2009 intact.

Now that I have returned to my business full-time, my revenue is starting to bounce back.

The past nine years has been a wild and exciting ride. The thrill of growing a business from nothing to something worthwhile has been an awesome experience for me.

But to the point of this article, this story would have been very different if I had not committed to a specific business model in 2001, and it would have been very different if I had not committed to a specific marketing plan for the promotion of that business.

If I had not made the commitment to develop a viable business model and commit to a specific marketing plan, I would have probably still been working 60 hours per week on a job when my dad got sick. If I had still been working in the brick-and-mortar world of retail sales, I would not have had the opportunity to help my dad when he most needed my help.

Then again, I would have had a different job than I had previously, because my last employer went out of business in January 2009.

With all that has happened in the last 16 months, I count among my greatest blessings the care and concern that was shown to me by my clients. Sure, some of the new people had absolutely no patience for my absences… But, I received a large number of personal phone calls, snail-mail letters, e-mails, blog comments, and tweets from my clients and people that I know from online, who wanted to offer their support to me, during my emotional roller coaster ride.

My greatest blessings have been realized in 2009 and 2010. I am blessed by the wonderful people, whom I have met online through my online business. And I am blessed to have a business that was strong enough to survive my frequent absences, during the last 16 months.

Those blessings were available to me, because I made a commitment in 2001 to stop chasing new opportunities every couple of weeks. I made the commitment to a business model that I believed could be successful, and I made the commitment to promote that business in a consistent and reliable manner.

When I brought commitment to my online marketing endeavors, I finally started to make money online. As I maintained that commitment over several years, I was able to grow my business to the point where I would be able to consistently earn enough money from my business, so that I would never have to have an outside job again.

To be honest, I believe that the reason my business continued to attract new customers through 2009 was because I had used article marketing to promote my businesses. The articles I write and distribute, for the promotion of my online businesses, seem to have real staying power.

The articles that I wrote and distributed, over the last nine years, continue to influence readers to visit my websites and to learn more about my businesses and what I can do for the reader.

Between September 2008 and January of 2010, I only wrote and distributed four articles for the promotion of my websites. During those 16 months, I barely wrote and distributed one article every four months, yet the traffic to my website was only diminished during May of 2009, when my sites were off-line.

I honestly believe that the reason my websites continued to attract new visitors and new customers, during this period of time, is because I had more than 150 articles online, posted on thousands of websites, doing the hard work of convincing people that they needed to visit my websites to see how I could help them to accomplish their goals.

When your articles are as useful five years from now as they are today, your articles will have the same potential of continuing to send visitors to your website for many more years to come.

If you are seeking true success online, and you are still chasing the flavor of the week in business opportunities, I strongly recommend that you pick out something that seems to have real potential for you and to make a commitment to see it through to success.

If you would like to learn more about how to make article marketing work for you in the same positive manner that it has worked for me, pick up one or both of my article marketing ebooks shown below in my author information.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Road To Online Marketing Success Requires Commitment

A Unique Selling Proposition is what makes a business unique and/or different from all other businesses in its category. For example, the USP for a high-end restaurant, might include the exclusive clientele it serves, a specialized menu, white glove service, as well as other exclusive amenities.

Two Classic Unique Selling Propositions

To further illustrate what I’m talking about, following are two examples of the most famous and successful USP’s in the history of advertising:

You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less – or it’s free.

That USP allowed Domino’s Pizza to take over and dominate the pizza delivery market. And it clearly differentiates Domino’s from its many competitors.

Here’s Another Classic

When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight.

When they developed that USP, almost overnight, Federal Express (FedEx) became the dominant force in the overnight delivery industry. How dominant? It’s safe to say, the term “fedex” has permanent residence in the American business lexicon.

So, why is having a USP so important? Because with tens of millions of websites on the Internet all vying for attention, and thousands more signing on by the minute, if your business is the same as everyone else’s in your field, you might as well be invisible.

And if you don’t differentiate your business from the rest of the pack, I can almost guarantee, you will be invisible.

Giant Lollipops

Allow me to tell you a true story. When I was a child, I remember my mother taking me to the new doctor in town, Dr. Vosburgh to get some type of childhood vaccine. I was petrified. Like most kids, I hated needles. And each time the doctor tried to vaccinate me I’d pull away.

After failed multiple attempts to vaccinate me, the frustrated doctor said, “If you sit still while I vaccinate you, I’ll give you a lollipop, afterwards.”

“I’ve got lollipops at home,” I defiantly replied. “Not like mine,” the doctor responded teasingly. He then reached into his desk drawer, and pulled out the biggest lollipop I’d ever seen in my life. I’m not kidding.

That lollipop was so big and round, it could have easily covered up my entire face. It was a giant white lollipop, flat like a pancake, and it had a rainbow of different colors swirling all through the middle. Needless to say, I let the good doctor stick that needle in my arm.

Anyway, that new doctor quickly became the most popular doctor in town. All the kids liked him. And for some strange reason, I didn’t mind getting vaccinated anymore after that.
I was too young to realize it at the time, but that doctor had a Unique Selling Proposition – giant rainbow lollipops. And they worked like a charm!

Barack Obama’s USP

Here’s a more recent example of the importance of a USP. Before he was elected the 44th president of the United States, then candidate Barack Obama wisely positioned himself as the candidate of “change.” He captivated the nation with three little words, “Yes, We Can!”

Whenever he appeared on the campaign trail, huge crowds repeatedly chanted “Yes, We Can!” Hip-Hop producer and founding member of the popular singing group Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am even created a viral video around the phrase. Needless to say, it was absolute smash hit online!

That catch phrase not only caught on like wildfire in America, people around the world soon began chanting “Yes We Can!” That catch phrase, along with his message of hope and change was Obama’s USP. That’s what made him different.

Obviously, he had other important qualities as well. I mean, you don’t get elected president of the United States simply because of a catch phrase.

That being said, you could reasonably argue that without that simple catch phrase, Obama might not have gotten the attention of millions of Americans. And as a consequence might never have been elected president.

And here’s an interesting bit of irony: Reportedly, Obama hated the “Yes, We Can” phrase when it was first presented to him by his campaign manager, David Axelrod. Obama thought the phrase was corny.

However, instinctively savvy Michelle Obama told her husband the phrase would work. Obama eventually gave in, and the rest as they say is history. Such is the importance of having a Unique Selling Proposition – and an instinctively savvy wife!

Unique Selling Proposition Defined

This is what brilliant advertising executive, Rosser Reeves wrote in his book, Reality in Advertising:

“Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: “Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.”

The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique – either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.”

That’s an accurate and profound observation. However, it’s not enough to just have a USP. You have to flaunt it. You have to constantly remind people what makes your company unique. You have to tell them over and over again everyday – until they get it. And when they do get it, you have to tell them some more.

You Have to Flaunt Your Uniqueness

Unfortunately, many businesses don’t communicate effectively enough how they’re different from the competition. They expect consumers to just know that they’re different. And as a result, consumers assume that your business is just like every other business in your field.

You see, unless you tell them differently, consumers generally perceive one lawyer to just like the next, one mechanic to be like the next, and one plumber to be like the next. And if you haven’t told them otherwise, why wouldn’t they? Indeed, why shouldn’t they?

By demonstrating how you’re different on a consistent basis, the value of your business will rise in the eyes of your target audience. And when your business value rises, so too will your profits. The two go hand in hand.

By the way, a Unique Selling Proposition doesn’t have to be an material object like a giant lollipop, or a sequence of words like a catch phrase. A USP can be virtually anything that makes your business unique and interesting.

Another Effective USP

For example, a friend of mine, who is a website designer has a very interesting and gutsy USP. Before meeting with prospects for the first time, he builds actual turnkey websites with the prospects company colors, logo and even some basic content. These websites often take up to a week to build.

But here’s the kicker… his prospects don’t even know that he does this. The completed-in-advance websites are a complete surprise to them, when they actually meet. So, in essence, my friend is taking a huge gamble, using his valuable time building websites without so much as a small deposit.

When I asked him why he invested so much sweat equity into building websites for free, he told me that since he started using this technique, his prospects are so impressed with his designs and initiative, over 70% of them end up purchasing the websites on the spot – over 70%!

That’s some closing ratio! He said his conversion ratio is twice as high as it was before he started building websites in advance. I guess you can’t argue with success.

So there you have it – the importance of having a Unique Selling Proposition. So if you haven’t done so already, get to work on developing an effective USP for your business. I’m not promising it will get you elected president of the United States…but hey, you never know!

About the author:

David Jackson is a writer, marketing consultant and entrepreneur. Which online services can you trust? Find out here: http://reviews-by-customers.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Obama, Giant Lollipops and Unique Selling Propositions

What is a tweetchat?

It’s a stream of tweets on the same topic in real time. Imagine it as a gigantic instant messaging free-for-all on a stated topic.

First let’s talk about participating in one. Then we’ll talk about how starting one can help you market on Twitter.

Let’s take this scenario:

I announce that a tweetchat on #ficbkmkt (hashtag for fiction book marketing) will take place on a specific date and time. (I make sure to state what time zone in the U.S. this is.) I tweet about this ahead of time and get others to also tweet the topic, time and date.

At the specific date and time I use a third-party application to participate in a tweetchat in real time. This way I can follow the tweets of people I’m not following yet and people who are not following me yet can see my tweets on the subject.

While there are other third-party ways to participate in tweetchats, I like tweetchat.com the best. Just know that you can change the speed of how fast you get the new tweets. I’m a fast typist so I choose to get new updates every five seconds (the fastest). For others that may be too hard to follow and you’ll want to leave it at the 10 seconds default or even increase to a longer interval between tweets.

At the date and time I go to tweetchat.com and enter my Twitter username and password. Then in the room prompt I enter #ficbkmkt and I’m part of the conversation.

When I tweet from inside this “room” the hashtag #ficbkmkt will be automatically added to my tweet (which is why I don’t have the full 140 characters in a tweet).

If people not participating in the chat are following any of the people in the chat, these outside people can see in their regular Twitter stream the tweets with the hashtag of the people they’re following. And the outside people can respond from their regular Twitter stream but must manually add #fictbkmkt to their tweets so these tweets will show up in the tweetchat room.

Tweetchats are usually for an hour or more. Some are the same time every week and others are for a special event.

The regularly scheduled tweetchats may have a specified topic for each chat or they may be an open exchange of information. The tweetchat organizer decides the format.

I will admit that the tweets can fly fast and furious. Leaders of well-organized tweetchats often have a series of questions and ask people to put the question number before the reply to make it easier for people to follow the conversation. Thus a tweet reply inside the tweetchat that answers “How do you search on Twitter?” (which has been designated as question 4) may look like this:

Q4: There are numerous applications that allow you to search Twitter by different criteria. [hashtag of tweetchat automatically attached]

Now let’s say you want to host a special event tweetchat or start a regularly scheduled tweetchat:

Why would you do this? To establish yourself as a leader in a specific niche. To be known as someone who truly contributes to the conversation in this area. To help out someone.

For example, when getglue.com was new, I offered to host a special tweetchat with a representative from getglue so that he could explain to book authors how getglue could be used for book marketing. The tweetchat afforded book authors the opportunity to learn from the getglue representative and also share tips with each other.

Now I admit I offered to do a tweetchat for getglue for a self-interested reason: I wanted myself to understand how getglue could be used for book marketing. But I did put effort into promoting the tweetchat ahead of time plus I edited the transcript from the tweetchat and put it on my FictionMarketing.com blog so that others who didn’t participate in the live tweetchat could benefit from the advice.

This I utilized the Twitter marketing strategy of providing valuable information for others while learning information for myself.

One other hosting tip: Because many people on Twitter don’t know what a tweetchat is, when I sponsor a special event tweetchat I create an announcement through twitwall.com. This way I can have a headline about the tweetchat (which becomes the tweet) and then a link to the twitwall announcement with instructions about how to join the tweetchat.

P.S. And if you’ve added good information as a participant or host of a tweetchat, you’ll discover that a lot of people from the tweetchat who weren’t following you before will now be following you.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Participate in a Tweetchat

You add valuable content, affiliate links to high converting products, your own product links…but there is a problem. You have no traffic. Without traffic, there is no one to appreciate your hard work and awesome content.

Without traffic, you are a nobody in the cyber world. Traffic is what gets the search engine Gods to notice you. There is no one to click your affiliate links without traffic.

But, it can get expensive driving traffic to your site if you use some of the paid methods such as PPC.

There are however some very valid traffic producing methods that you can employ for free.

Let’s examine a few:

1) Forum Marketing: The worst think you can do is show up on forums and start dropping one liners with your “signature” and a link back to you blog. This is considered spam and the only thing it will do for you is to get you banned. But, forums are an excellent place to get noticed with when you add great valuable content.

Obviously you want to choose forums that focus on your particular topic or niche. Forums are a condensed concentration of the people that are interested in your niche…all located in one spot. Make sure with each post, you leave your signature with a link to your product, website and or blog.

If you establish yourself as a valued contributor then you will eventually be perceived as an expert and people will navigate to your blog or website to find out more.

2) Article marketing: There is a hungry audience waiting for excellent articles to use on their own websites or blog and article directories is where they go looking. With articles, you don’t want to fill the article with your links but use the author resource/bio box provided to leave your signature and links.

You can employ the use of article directories to get your article listed in hundreds of article directories. Additionally, many directories also submit to newsletter publishers.

It’s always a good idea to track your articles by using Google Alerts. If someone is routinely publishing your material, you may want to contact them and offer to submit your articles directly to them whenever you write a new one.

3) Sign up on sites like MyBlogLog and use their widget on your site. You can befriend other bloggers and build your own community of followers with MyBlogLog…a social community that you can tap into and get a consistent flow of traffic.

4) If you have an opt in form on your site, make sure to send an email out every time you create a new post. These people have already shown an interest by signing up to your blog…keep them informed and coming back.

5) Let’s not forget the basics…blog posting. You need to stay on top of your website or blog and keep it fresh with new content including using your keywords for SEO purposes. Ideally, your keywords should be in the title, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. But, only if it makes sense to do so.

6) Yahoo answers is an excellent way to get traffic and show off your expert knowledge. Look for questions in your area of expertise and provide valuable answers. It’s important that you add your link for reference.

7) Getting free traffic can be as easy as guest blogging on some high-ranking blogs but only if you can write intelligent, interesting, value filled posts that will benefit them. Your link will then be added to your post and can bring lots of free traffic your way.

Twitter: Let’s not forget Twitter. Twitter is here to stay and has become an invaluable source of free traffic, so if you haven’t already, it’s time you took a hard look at it. In fact, every time you submit an article to Ezine the reader can tweet the title and link to it.

Once again, don’t go on Twitter and start spamming with links, links, links. That is what you will become known for. Instead, build up a stream of targeted followers by providing interesting tweets.

9) Build a Squidoo Lense: Squidoo pages are the perfect avenue to get 1-way links to your blog. You can get direct traffic to your Squidoo lense if you use your long-tail keywords. Google loves Squidoo pages and using this method will often get you ranked in the top ten.

10) Video: Create and distribute a video that includes a link back to your blog or website. Videos have taken over the Internet as most people would rather watch a video than read a screen. People love them.

This by no means a comprehensive list as there are many more ways to drive free traffic. But, these are some of the most important ones and will get you started.

Don’t be discouraged easily. It takes time for people to discover your new blog or website. You must be patient and consistently work towards your goal and if you do, I promise that you will reap the benefits.

Combine persistent and consistent action with patience and before you know it you will have your own thriving list of subscribers hungry to learn from you.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Free Traffic for Your Website or Blog

Coming from a background of having spent over 20 years in the U.S. military, and having spent four years as a software tester, I have a greater awareness of the need for continuous vigilance in this area than your average marketer.

I also know that you can never make your websites or your computers completely secure. Instead, you can only do things that reduce the risk.

Given that you spend a lot of time, money, and energy, building your online business, it only makes sense that you set aside time periodically to review security related issues, and to look for problems that can be easily minimized.

Here are a few easy “fixes” that you can implement today that will increase the security of your online business.

1) Delete outdated scripts that you no longer use from your server. Many of “the bad guys” have studied the exact same scripts that you use to power your websites, and they know where the backdoors and vulnerabilities are. They know exactly which file will allow them to create all kinds of havoc.

If you have old programs on your server that you are not using, simply delete them.

2) Update older scripts that you are using. Often, the reason that updates are released for a script IS to patch a vulnerability that the developer has become aware of.

YES, upgrading can seem time consuming, and it can be tempting to skip an update, and just wait for the next one. When you wake up one day and can’t access your server, or all of your websites have been defaced or erased, you’ll see the wisdom in ALWAYS keeping the scripts powering your websites completely updated.

If you are as non-techie as I am, you simply hire a trusted programmer to perform this task.

3) Change the default setting when installing scripts on your servers. Many scripts have default passwords, and default locations for critical directories that make these scripts work flawlessly. Since everyone obtaining a copy of these script have these settings, you probably want to change them, and you also may want to rename certain directories.

4) Secure your web logs. Many web hosts have a standard location for the website’s logs and statistics on each hosting account. The files that allow you to access, read, download, and manipulate this data often aren’t secured. At a minimum, password protect that directory.

The danger in someone readily accessing your logs is that they can see the names and paths of the files on your server, including your download pages and the file names of files that may actually be for sale products

There are not only people who search on your product name, looking for unsecured files – there are also people who enjoy posting those links on sites where this type of information is shared.

5) Put an index page in every directory on your server. If someone surfs to the domain name of one of the directories on your server, and there is no index page in that directory, they will get a directory tree… showing them all of the files in that directory, and allowing them to simply click in a given file name to access it.

Servers can be configured to prevent this, but for many people, the quickest and simplest way to protect their directories from prying eyes is to stick an index page in each directory.

6) Give your download pages hard to guess names. Don’t use urls like YourDomain.com/ProductName/download.html Instead you want to give download pages names comprised of a random sequence of letters and numbers, perhaps stick them in directories not even associated with a given product, or use a “download guard-type” script that gives each customer a unique download link and protects your files.

There are a lots of other things that you can do to easily close common holes in your website’s security. This article barely scrapes the surface, and is intended more to make you aware of the problem, and to get your thinking about it. Make regularly reading articles and reports on the topic a part of your education in how to operate a successful online business.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Are Your Websites Secure Or Is The Back Door Wide Open?

Creating an effective sales letter is really all about following a formula. If you look at enough sales letters, you realize that most of them follow the same template. While there aren’t necessarily any hard-and-fast rules, here are 13 steps to help you create the perfect sales letter for your product or service:

1. Headlines. First create an intro headline, which appears in smaller font just before your primary headline and gets your reader warmed up for the headline to follow. Then comes your primary headline, which is a large font in a different font color that must grab your reader’s attention. The best way to get your reader’s attention in your headline is to tug at an emotion, like fear, insider secrets that no one else knows, or how to do something.

   Then, you have mini-headlines that are scattered throughout your text. Usually they contain a benefit and are meant to draw the reader’s eye to a certain section of text. They are in a larger font although smaller than the primary headline and in a different color than the text of your letter.

2. Greeting. Start your letter with “Dear Target Market Name”, a date, and your geographic location.
3. Introduction. This is section where you reiterate the details of a particular problem suffered by your target market, empathize with those who have a similar problem, outline why it’s important to seek a solution, and begin to drop hints that you’ve got the solution to this problem.
4. Your story and credentials. Elaborate on your background and credentials that make you qualified to sell this product or service, as well as the story that led to the creation of this product.
5. Product introduction. Here’s where you talk more about your product and begin to list and explain the main benefits (not features), or what’s in it for your reader if your reader buys the product.
6. Bullet points. While this isn’t technically a part of the template, you’ll want to make full use of bullet points throughout your sales letter as a way of cleanly listing the many benefits and features of your product. Bullet points make it very easy for a reader to scan your page and pick up the pertinent information she needs to make a decision to buy your product.
7. Testimonials. Testimonials serve as social proof that your product works. If others have purchased and used your product and gained the benefits that you promise, the reader feels more certain that they can purchase it, too, and receive similar benefits. Make your testimonials believable by including a photo, web site URL, phone number, audio, or video of the person giving the testimonial. The more that your visitor can identify with the person giving the testimonial, the more likely she is to purchase from you.
8. Product details/benefits. Here’s where you get to break everything down for your reader, with all of the details of all of the specific components of your product.
9. Your offer and bonuses. Your offer can make or break the sale of your product. Make the offer so irresistible that your reader can’t help but think, “I’ve gotta get that!” When you add bonuses to the mix, you increase the value of the offer immediately. Make sure that your bonuses are directly related to your main product so that your reader sees the enhanced value.
10. Guarantee. Make your reader feel safe by offering an iron-clad guarantee that takes all the risk out of the purchase.
11. Price justification. Compare your pricing to other products/services that you sell, or to items your reader might use regularly. Your goal here is to make the price a non-issue for the reader by reminding her how much continuing to deal with this problem is costing her.
12. Final call to action. Again make your offer here, with clear, specific instructions on how your reader can purchase the product. Remind her of your guarantee and any bonuses she receives for purchase. Remind your reader why she should take action now, and include a sense of scarcity here, as in time limits, product limits, or limiting the bonuses to the few xx number of orders.
13. Closing and postscripts (P.S.). Sign off on your letter and include at least one post-script. The post-script serves as a a powerful place where you give readers a reason to go back and consider the offer. Believe it or not, the P.S. the third most-read section of your sales letter, so don’t forget to include at least one. The P.S. is also the last place many of your readers will end up after reading your offer – just before they leave. Your P.S. needs to be the last persuasive offer to get them to stay and buy.

When you follow these 13 steps, you have now created a powerful sales letter. By following this 13-step formula, any online business owner can create an effective sales letter that sells her product or service.

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Copywriting Tips: 13 Steps to Creating the Perfect Sales Letter Template

Google looks for websites that continually provide fresh and relevant content. Since Google has such strict guidelines for top spot, it requires web page owners to continually work on keeping their page’s content fresh and relevant to hold a top spot in the list.

Keywords and Phrases

Google looks for phrases and keywords as it is assessing a site. It evaluates a site’s content, and looks for phrases that match a particular search term. If say, a visitor is looking for ‘boat repair’ Google will display pages where that keyword shows up several of times in the body of the page. So when you are optimizing your web page, you should concentrate on phrases rather than single words. Now that you know Google is looking for a particular phrase you do not want to go crazy with that phrase on a page either, because this is know as keyword stuffing. Be careful with keyword phrases–if Google sees too many of them, they will lower your page in the search engine rankings.

The Title Tag

The title tag is important and is unique to each page in a website. The tag can be found on the browser’s title bar. It is also used by Googlebot to see what the page contents are going to be. Google then looks at the page contents and evaluates if the two match, and this helps determine page relevance. Since Google looks at each page in a domain, many sites dynamically generate page titles with an introduction text appended to the company name.

Anchor Text

When you add link tags to your page, this is anchor text. Take care to be precise in your anchor test by using relevant phrases for prominent links on your page. Google is looking for specific link information, so the more specific that you can be the better. If you focus on your site’s keyword terms and make sure that these are always in line with your content, you will make Google’s assessment of your site easy. Google is generous with its link limits saying that no more than 100 links should ever appear on a web page.

Header Tags

Header tags are HTML page elements coded “”, and they provide a bold heading on the page. The headers tell Google what the purpose of the page is, and the title tag tells it the purpose of the website. You should have a header tag on each page.

Quality Content

The last thing that Google is looking for is unique content. Google’s customers are your website visitors, and when Google returns a search list, they want their customers to be happy. So you are helping Google as it is helping your. New content and keyword phrases help you get to the top of Google’s search list. So if you have bad content – either plagiarized, badly written or irrelevant content – Google is
not interested in you. Make sure to follow Google guidelines, or Google will blacklist your domain and not link to it at all.

Optimize Your Website for Google and Make it Readable

By complying with the guidelines that Google has set out for page ranking, you can set your page up to show up at the top of the search list. By continually adding new content,
Google will mark your page as a good one to return to its customer. However, you must always make sure that you site is aesthetically pleasing and readable by a human, because the point of why you optimize your website for Google, is to attract new visitors to your page to increase your company’s market share.

For a free, no-obligation consultation, contact Anton Pearce by completing the quick-response form at http://www.antonpearce.com . Set aside just 30 minutes and discover how you can use online marketing to get all the clients you need to fill your practice. Anton is an online marketing consultant who specializes in helping health and
wellness professionals to market their services online. Visit http://www.antonpearce.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Do You Want the Top Spot on Google? Find Out How

Twitter is a microblogging site. You can send tiny messages of 140 characters or less to whomever you wish. The newest flavor in social networking sites, Twitter can be used to build personal networks or business networks.

Different Ways to Use Twitter Marketing

While there are many different ways to incorporate Twitter into your marketing campaign, some of the more common uses are strictly to share information. Since you can share tiny blurbs of information with a huge number of people at the click of a button, Twitter is great for keeping your Twitter followers updated. It can be used to share public service announcements, news updates, business news and friend and family updates. It is built for disseminating information almost constantly.

Because Twitter is designed to constantly feed current updates to your followers, it is a natural for marketing a business. The proper way to share business information over Twitter is to tweet a link for a website containing the complete information. For business owners sharing their information over Twitter lets your prospects and customers discover you. Twitter does have very strict etiquette when it comes to advertising, and by offending the protocol, you can quickly alienate followers and potentially damage your brand.

Twitter is a great tool for promoting your company’s events. Twitter is designed to share timely news, so promoting today’s lunch special would be appropriate, but tweeting about month old news is not appropriate. Keep your tweets conversational and very personal in tone. Any advertising should be in a ‘by the way’ fashion, not ‘in your face’ advertising.

Twitter Marketing can have Lots of Personality

The more personality that your brand has, the easier it will be to tweet about. A unique voice will make your tweets entertaining. You can always wrap your tweets around a kernel of important information, and then deliver them in an entertaining and conversational manner. Your followers will look forward to hearing from you, and you will be able to get your message out constantly which is a great way to market your small business.

Another place where Twitter is incredibly valuable is with your customer contact. Twitter is designed to be conversational, and it is a great way to keep a dialogue going with your customers and prospects. It’s also useful for catching service problems and getting feed back from ustomers. This is particularly helpful to make sure that you are building a good reputation for your company. Twitter allows you to correct problems and retain customers.

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How to Tweet: A Few Tips on Using Twitter for Your Business

Benefits (Pros Of Using RSS)
The benefits for a webmaster who opts to implement RSS feeds on their website are numerous:

1. Saves Time

RSS feeds save time. RSS subscribers can quickly scan RSS feeds, without having to visit each and every website. Subscribers can then click on any items they are interested in, to get additional information.

2. Timely

RSS feeds are timely. RSS feeds will automatically update themselves any time new information is posted, so the information your subscribers receive via their RSS reader or news aggregator is timely.

3. Spam Free

RSS is free of spam. Subscribers don’t have to worry about wading through huge amounts of spam in an attempt to get to the information they are actually interested in.

4. Opt-In

The RSS subscriber chooses what they want to see, and what information they wish to receive. Knowing they have full control, and that they do not have to provide any personal information to subscribe, they will be more likely to opt-in.

5. Unsubscribing Is Easy

It is also easy to unsubscribe from an RSS feed. If they do not like information contained in an RSS feed, they can simply remove the RSS feed from their RSS reader or news aggregator in order to unsubscribe.

6. Alternate Communication Channel

RSS provides you with an alternate communication channel for your business. And the more channels you provide, the more opportunities you have to connect with your customers and potential customers.

7. Expands Audience Through Syndication

The very nature of RSS is that it is designed specifically for syndication (i.e. publication by others). And wide-spread syndication can expand a company’s reach and strengthen the company brand.

8. Can Increase Backlinks

When an RSS feed is syndicated, it can increase the number of links back to the original website. And additional incoming links will often help a website rank better in organic search rankings.

9. Increases Productivity

RSS increases productivity, allowing people to quickly scan new posts and headlines, and only clicking through and spending time on the items of interest.

10. Competitive

Whether you decide to implement RSS feeds or not, your competitors likely will. So one way to remain competitive is to implement RSS feeds and other web 2.0 technology, and not allow your competition to get ahead of you.

Negatives (Cons Against Using RSS)

1. Not Widely Adopted Yet

Outside of technical circles, RSS has not yet been widely adopted. While it is becoming more and more popular, it is still far from being a mainstream technology.

2. Content Can Easily Be Copied

Content contained in an RSS feed can easily be copied and replicated, regardless of whether you want it to be or not. Few aggregators respect the copyrights of content contained in an RSS feed.

3. Tracking Subscribers Is Difficult

It is very difficult to accurately track the number of subscribers who read an RSS feed or the items contained in an RSS feed. This is due in part to the fact that at its heart, RSS is all about achieving the widest syndication possible.

4. Source Origination Difficult

It is sometimes difficult to discern the origin of an RSS feed item. When an item is syndicated, the source is not always indicated. The metrics available are not always reflective of the traffic received.

Weigh the pros and cons of implementing an RSS feed as a communication channel, and determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks in your own situation.

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Pros and Cons of Using RSS Feeds