Article Categories

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

SiteProNews Blogs

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

5 Steps to a perfect review landing page

By Peter D in Webmasters

Affiliate marketing is getting harder and harder, due to the low level of entry (anyone can become your new competitor overnight). So it’s important to convert as many of your precious visitors into paying customers.

While you may be tempted to link all of your ads and articles to an affiliate offer (if you’re lucky and this gets overlooked), the truth is that almost all of us affiliates need to send our hard earned traffic to a webpage that pre-sells that visitor on a particular product.

The traditional way to do this was to create a page that sung the praises of a certain affiliated product, which kind of worked but not amazingly. Why? Because it soon became obvious to the wise consumers that your gamelan was to straight up and sell them something.

Now, nobody likes being sold to. But people love to make up their own mind about their buying decisions. So were introduced methods of “totally unbiased” pre-selling, one of the most powerful being the review page.

The reason a review page works so well is because it doesn’t just hard sell you on a specific product but instead gives you a choice, based on actual reasons why or why not a product is worth the money/time/effort and whether or not it is any good.

So if you’re thinking of making more money as an affiliate marketer online, then I suggest you not only incorporate review pages into your sales process, but make sure you do it right using the following blueprint:

Step 1. The Headline

The headline will draw people in and create excitement and desire to continue reading. The headline must include a clear benefit and address the reader as personally as possible. Always state what they will be gaining from reading on, based on the specific problem that they are experiencing.

Step 2. The Body

The entire body is elaborating on the headline and getting the reader involved. This might include telling a short story (only needs to be a paragraph here), in order to connect with the reader, and give a clear reason why you’ve bothered to do a review of these particular products.

Step 3. The products

Many people still do a review on one product and leave nothing to compare it against. I think this is a big mistake, because a comparison of similar products will help prevent the reader from leaving your page to compare the product you’ve reviewed with similar products elsewhere. In other words, why not get them to do their entire research on your page instead?

Step 4. Believability

If you make out as if the winning product is perfect in every sense, then you’ll lose sales. Why? Because people will believe a balanced review over a blatant sales pitch any day of the week. Pick out a few minor bad points and contrast them with the good points so as not to kill the sale.

Step 5. Call to action

Once you’ve written your reviews of each product, make the winning product the most prominent on the page, at the top before the fold. This will prevent visitors clicking away and will be able to clearly see which product is worth looking into. Make all of your links stand out, even on the losing products and be sure to use phrases that ask the visitor to take action, such as “click here to get rid of x..”.

If you apply these techniques to your review pages, you can expect to increase your conversions significantly. What you really need to consider is that more people are doing review type pre-selling every day, so in order for you to stand out; I would highly recommend you do a proper review and not just a “fake” review where you are talking out of your behind! So, you would do well to actually buy the products you are reviewing and make balanced points good AND bad and simply let the visitor make the decision, not you.

If you follow this advice, I can assure you that you’ll always be ahead of the competition by giving your visitors valuable help in buying through affiliate links. Trust me, your visitors will actually appreciate this more than you’d think, and you’re still going to be picking up the affiliate pay checks at the end of the month too.

---

We are facing an overload of products that teach us how to get rich with affiliate marketing…so it is crucial that you pick a product that not only works but is right for YOU personally… Don’t buy any one of them before you have read my reviews at: http://www.clickhere-direct.com

Website Terms of Use: Are Yours Enforceable? Does It Matter?

By Chip Cooper in Webmasters

Clients frequently ask me, “click-wrapped”, “browse-wrapped” — what do these terms mean? Are they the typical legal mumbo jumbo?

Your Customer Agreement (often called a Subscription Agreement, Membership Agreement, or SaaS Agreement) is a so-called “click-wrapped” agreement because your customer indicates agreement by clicking on an I AGREE button. For this reason, click-wrapped agreements are usually legally enforceable provided they are presented correctly.

Your website’s Terms of Use govern all visitors to your site — both casual visitors and registered customers. Terms of Use are typically referred to as “browse-wrapped” agreements because there is no requirement to click an I AGREE button. So, the question I’m often asked is… since the Terms of Use do not require a click, are they legally enforceable? And if not, why have them on the site?

So, the question is… since the Terms of Use do not involve an affirmative action such as a click to indicate agreement, are they legally enforceable? And if not, why have them on the site?

A recent case involving a bot’s repeated access to Southwest Airline’s site provides some insight into the answer to the first question — are browse-wrapped agreements enforceable?

The Airline “Bot” Case

In the case of Southwest Airlines v. BoardFirst, LLC, No. 3:06-cv-00891 (N.D. Tex. Sept. 12, 2007), Defendant BoardFirst utilized a software “bot” to assist passengers of Southwest Airlines to book the popular “A” group boarding passes.

The BoardFirst.com site utilized the “bot” software to book Southwest’s customers for a fee, despite Southwest’s Terms posted on its site that “use of the Southwest websites constitutes acceptance of our Terms and Conditions”. Clicking on the Terms And Conditions link sends the user to Terms which authorized use of Southwest’s site “only for personal, non-commercial purposes”. Southwest’s Terms did not require a click on an “ACCEPT” or “I AGREE” button — hence, the Terms were of the browse- wrapped variety.

Southwest sent two cease and desist letters to BoardFirst, citing its Terms and demanding that BoardFirst cease its activities in breach of the Terms. BoardFirst continued its actions, and Southwest sued.

Were Southwest’s Browse-Wrapped Terms Enforceable?

The Court noted that the validity of a browse-wrapped license turns on whether a website user has actual or constructive notice of the site’s terms and conditions prior to using the site. There was no dispute that BoardFirst had actual knowledge after receipt of Southwest’s two cease and desist letters. The Court ruled that Southwest’s Terms were enforceable against BoardFirst.

Conclusion

Note that the Court’s ruling stands for the proposition that browse-wrapped agreements are enforceable only if there is actual or constructive notice of the terms. This ruling is consistent with prior cases involving similar facts. Because few if any ecommerce websites provide actual or constructive notice prior to use, it follows from this reasoning that most are not enforceable as contracts.

I’m often asked — if Terms of Use are not legally enforceable in the absence of specific evidence of actual or constructive notice, what is their value?

One compelling reason for Terms of Use in ecommerce websites is that they usually provide various legal notices that are required by law for which agreement is not required. For example, if your site uses a blog, in order to qualify for the “safe harbor” from copyright liabiity, a specific notice is required, and a good place for it is in the Terms of Use.

Other notices that you must have on your site are certain legal disclaimers for which no agreement is necessary. Again, your Terms of Use is a good place for these disclaimers.

So, even though Terms of Use as typically used are not enforceable as a binding contract, they do provide a place for essential legal notices. And for this reason, Terms of Use serve an indispensable function on your ecommerce website.

---

Chip Cooper is a leading intellectual property, software, and Internet attorney who’s advised software and online businesses nationwide for Chip’s 25+ years. Visit Chip’s http://www.digicontracts.com site and download his FREE newsletter and Special Reports: “Determine Which Legal Documents Your Website Really Needs (With Sample Agreements)”, “Draft Your Own Privacy Policy”, and “Write Your Own Website Marketing Copy — Legally”.

My New Website-From Scratch to Profit

By John Smalley in Webmasters

Without traffic from search engines (both large and small) you will be very limited in your chances for success of any magnitude. Pay-Per-Click can be effective after you learn the ropes. Just be sure to limit how much you can lose. To get traffic from search engines, you will need page rank (where your organic-free ad appears when someone enters one of your keywords in a search box). In order to get your website to rank high enough that search engines give you decent position for your organic ads- you need to work on two aspects of your website. The content (words) on your home page which contain your keywords, and back links pointing back to your website. A back link is your URL in the content of another website. It could be a one-way link in a directory, or an ad with your link you have paid to place on another website, or it could be a free classified ad on a website, or it could be your URL on a discussion forum, or in an article you have written that has been published.

Keywords on your home page should be repeated maybe 3 to 5 times with the main keyword being repeated maybe 10 to 14 times. Your keywords should be included in well structured sentences and paragraphs. Try to get authority links to your website. Authority links are links to websites that offer the same type services and products that your website offers. These types of links will build your page ranking with the search engines much faster. Place your paid ads on high traffic directories that specialize in listing the same type services or products that you offer. Do a search for one-way free directory links and get a list of these directories and submit your URL to a few dozen of them. This should help your page ranking.

When I optimize my website to get a good page ranking, I figure that page content (keywords on home page) account for about 20% of page rank, and back links to authority websites account for 70% of page rank, and one way links to general directories and forums accounts for about 10 % toward a favorable page ranking. Keep in mind that it can take from 60 to 90 days for links of all types to become effective as a factor in search engine ranking.

Thanks to the internet, when we talk about making money online, we do not only talk about the big players. Fact is, there are more small businesses online than the bigger ones. The power of the internet has allowed greater competition and has allowed even smaller businesses to earn income online. One way you can make money online is by creating your own website. Building a profitable website is a four-step process.

The first thing you need is a domain. This is basically the name of your website. If you have a preferred domain name, you can check a domain name registrar and see if the name you want is still available. If it isn’t, some domain registration services will give you suggested names. You will also need to have a hosting service in order for your site to be viewed on the internet.

The process of optimizing your website so that it will rank high on search engines such as Google and Yahoo is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is important because 80% of traffic going to your site is through search engines. Aside from this, traffic from search engines is free so capitalizing on SEO is one of the best tactics used by most website owners today in order to get a return on investment at a reasonable time.

Search engines rank the importance of websites through the number of websites which are linking to your site. Another method is through the keyword density (number of times keywords are repeated) of the content found on your website. Most SEO experts believe that you need to place meta tags (keywords and phrases placed in the first part of your page code) on the pages of your website in order to help search engines understand what the page is about. Also, there shouldn’t be more than 25 keywords per page. It is important that keywords are repeated in the page content as many times as possible, but don’t overdo it because some search engines can already detect faked content.

The last thing you need to do in order for your website to become profitable is by promoting it. You can submit your site to search engines and website directories. You can also buy links or create valuable back links through articles. There are article submission services that will submit your article to hundreds of ezines and article directories. In the internet world, just like the real world, you need to make sure that your site gets as much exposure as possible. Remember that the more visitors you have for your site, the greater chances you have of making a sale. Keywords: your home page, search engines, back link, back links, authority links, your website, free directory links, page ranking, make money online, making money online, domain name, optimizing your website, page rank

---

John Smalley of Smalley Web Solutions is a team of four people with skills in marketing, website design, and programming. Our website design fees are among the lowest in our industry. We offer free web hosting and domain name registration for one year to all of our clients. Contact Smalley Web Solutions at http://www.webwizardonline.net or jfsmalley@clearwire.net.

Thank You Cuil, My Search Results Needed Random Irrelevant Pictures

By Jason Bland in Jerry Bader's Blog

I was just thinking several months ago while doing a Google search how nice it would be if my search results were accompanied by completely random non-relevant images and icons.

It was a big deal, a group of Google expats raise thirty million dollars to stick a group of servers together and suddenly call themselves a search engine. In earlier news releases, Cuil even talked about how their results were less dependant on links than that of Google. So, we ran a little test to see if this was true.

Does anybody remember the “miserable failure” Google bomb? A group of anti-Bush bloggers and webmasters linked the keyphrase “miserable failure” to U.S. President George Bush’s official Whitehouse.gov web site. Regardless of the fact that the site doesn’t use the phrase “miserable failure”, the site ranked number one in Google. Google fixed the problem and resulting searches for “miserable failure” became content based.

When Cuil launched, I noticed a spike in traffic to the article resources on my company’s web site generated from Cuil. People immediately searched for “miserable failure”. Guess what is number four, Whitehouse.gov. Look one row below that and you will see my article titled “Google Repairs Miserable Failure”. Next to it, ‘The Onion’ logo.

I was just thinking several months ago while doing a Google search how nice it would be if my search results were accompanied by completely random non-relevant images and icons. Thank you Cuil for making this a reality.

The “engineers” at new search engines like the now forgotten Accoona like to come up with new looks and logos while completely ignoring what makes Google so popular. Unlike the Ask.com post Interactive Media buyout commercials saying “Don’t just use something out of habit [Google]“, people use Google because its clean and gives relevant results.

Users are not demanding results be displayed in some mid-90′s frame based design style. They want something fast, clean, and relevant. You want to do something useful with your undeserved $30 million of venture capital? How about you make something as fast, clean, and relevant as Google only with page rankings not changing ever 20 seconds.

I speak from experience. Several years ago I too developed a search engine which is now a huge online resource. We started a search engine then we quickly saw that only 2% of our users were actually doing web searches on it. So we spent a tiny amount of money integrating into Yahoo’s API for the search results then built a network of individual interest channels. Because new content on the web is far more valuable than a new way to find it. Especially if that new way displays irrelevant picture eye-candy in a framed search result screen.

Yahoo actually figured it out a long time ago. According to Alexa, Yahoo gets the most traffic of any other web site in the world. Yet, Google is delivering more than 70% of online search queries. See, Yahoo figured out that Google’s search was superior to theirs so they began investing heavily in their “channels of interest” sections.

When your product is inferior, know what you can be good at, excel in that, and don’t reinvent a wheel that is not broken. Oh, and free up some venture capital funding for real technological innovations.

Jason Bland is with guaranteed search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. Adviatech is one of the leading SEO firms offering results based online marketing solutions. To learn more about guaranteed SEO services, visit http://www.adviatech.com.

Promo Dashboard Review – List Building That Converts

By Titus Hoskins in Webmasters

List building is one of the most important elements of online marketing. Often it will determine the success or failure of your site or online business. Now there’s a handy product from well-known Internet Marketer Marlon Sanders which will help you build your list: Promo Dashboard.

Since list building is one of my favorite subjects Marlon Sanders’ Promo Dashboard held special interest for me. I am always eager to learn new ways to improve my list building methods and techniques. This product does not disappoint.

Promo Dashboard is a very detailed “point & click” solution to all your list building tasks. Easy to use and simple to implement – Marlon has gone out of his way to make list building something even the most novice marketer or webmaster can accomplish. Unlike many list building products, courses, ebooks, etc., there is no fluff or filler, just straight practical steps that take you from A to Z.

Promo Dashboard in a nutshell is all about building your list and converting your subscribers into buyers. It takes you Step-by-Step thru everything you need to do to build your opt-in list or lists and to get those prospects to check-out or buy your product.

But this is not just about building your list; it is also about promoting your products and business. This is direct, no-nonsense marketing advice on how to find your targeted audience, how to get these interested customers onto your list and how to convert these people into buyers. You get an online interface or site where you click on the icons on the DashBoard to get all the information you need to accomplish each task.

Marlon gives you an “audio overview” of the six Major Steps you need to do:

• targeting your market
• creating your offer
• building your squeeze page
• setting up your autoresponder
• promoting your offer
• turbo charging with Web 2.0

All these major steps are further divided into 6 sub-topics or things you need to do to “turbo charge” your promotions.

If all this sounds complicated, it isn’t.

Marlon always does a great job of breaking all these marketing steps and processes down into easy tasks even the beginning marketer can accomplish without too much sweat.

This is the main reason I like Promo Dashboard – it takes a rather complicated marketing process such as list building and breaks it down into simple steps anyone can do. That is also why I like all of Marlon Sanders’ Dashboard products which include Marketing Dashboard, Info-product Dashboard and Design Dashboard.

These Dashboards are practical “Point & Click” guides that break down rather complex marketing processes into simple, easy tasks anyone can do regardless of your own marketing background or experience. Besides, these products come from one of the legends of Internet Marketing… Marlon Sanders is a solid marketer who produces solid products that work.

Having done extensive work on list building myself, (I offer an online course and list building is one of my targeted keywords in Google – just check it!) I thought I knew everything about list building. However, PromoDashboard opened my eyes to many areas where I can fine-tune and improve my methods. It also offers excellent resources which I never thought of using before now… this is worth the price alone for me.

If you want a product that will give you ways to increase and improve your list or prospect building abilities, I would strongly recommend you consider Promo Dashboard. It is a simple “point & click” solution to all your list building problems. Moreover, it is a simple way for anyone to promote their site, business or products. Promo Dashboard delivers the goods and then some.

Titus Hoskins – Get a Step-by-Step Guide that will show you How to Start, Build & Manage your OWN HUGE Opt-In List. Click Here: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/opt-in.htm Or try other online marketing strategy.

Optimizing E-mail: Stay Productive, Not Busy

By Kevin Lawrence in Webmasters

Does email boost or hinder your performance? It all depends on how you use it.

Email offers us countless ways to save time and be more productive, but when we go on “email autopilot” – checking the inbox repeatedly, typing out messages that should be discussed, copying people who are only peripherally involved, and other bad habits we’ve picked up along the way – email can make us more busy than productive.

The problem with email is when we don’t contain it, our field of attention becomes fragmented. When attention is constantly shifting over to email, one’s ability to focus on work is severely compromised. The interesting thing is, professionals rarely recognize the degree to which email hampers performance.

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing except perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by email and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The emailers, on the other hands, did worse than intoxicated people by an average of 6 points.

Yet, in a recent survey of 320 professionals, 17% check a few times per hour and 68% check email more or less continually – constantly breaking their focus on the primary task at hand.

Thanks to the Blackberry and other portable devices, millions of people can’t go more than five minutes without checking email… and we’re doing it everywhere we go:

• In bed – 23%
• In class – 12%
• In business meetings – 8%
• At the beach or pool – 6%
• In the bathroom – 4%
• While driving – 4%
• In church – 1%

There’s a very good reason that “crackberry” was declared the 2006 Word-of-the-Year by Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Blackberry addiction was labeled “similar to drugs” in a recent study by Rutgers University.

Eight out of 10 admit using computers or other gadgets at bedtime and one-third of people make phone calls and send or receive messages in bed. One fifth check social networking sites such as Facebook, play computer games or listen to MP3 players.  Are these gadgets improving our productivity and quality of life, or just keeping us compulsively busy?

Many global firms in Zurich don’t allow their bankers to check email more than twice per day. The reason? The more they check email, the more compelled they feel to send email. This highlights the unscalable nature of most time-management approaches: striving to do more just produces increasingly more to do.

In order to streamline your email process and make it as efficient and effective as possible, here are 13 strategies to consider:

1. Turn off the audio alert for your email inbox, and even better, when you aren’t actively emailing, turn off your email program.
2. Check email 2-4 times per day at designated times. Communicate to those around you that you now check email a couple times a day, and if something critical arises, they should call you directly.
3. For each incoming email, there are only 5 choices: handle it immediately; forward/delegate it; file it; flag it for later follow-up; or delete it. Don’t let messages pile up in your inbox or they will be ignored.
4. Address the message to someone if they need to take action; only cc someone if they need to be aware of the information you’re sending.
5. Make only one request per email, and discuss one main idea per paragraph or section. Then specify the response you want (i.e. a phone call, follow-up or appointment).
6. Never leave the subject line blank; use it to quickly inform the recipient about the message content, level of urgency and response required. For example: “Info on the XYZ Company deal – please review for accuracy and reply by 3 p.m. today.”
7. Remember, email is intended to be short. Consider adopting a 3-4 sentence standard, plus attachments when necessary.
8. Establish a company-wide policy against messages that say “I got it” or “thanks.”
9. Establish or circulate your company’s retention/deletion policy. How long should messages be stored? What are the criteria to keep a message? What are the criteria to delete?
10. Create a “to read later” folder for newsletters, education, and other low-priority messages. File them when they arrive, then go through them in batches when time permits.
11. Don’t write an email when it would be faster to pick up the phone (hint: this is more often that you think).
12. Avoid expressing anger or chastising someone in an email; you’re better off talking face-to-face or by phone. That way you can vent and make an impact without the corrosive effect of written words that can be read over and over again.
13. If a lengthy response is required but you can’t answer immediately, send a reply indicating that you received the message and when you will respond fully.

Take Action: Choose 3 Strategies

People waste so much time and energy (in business and life) that could be better invested in higher-value activities. If each of us could free up even a half hour a day by using these ideas, we’d all be a lot better off.

Decide on three steps you will take or changes you will make to streamline your relationship with email and use it more effectively.

No matter how you decide to optimize e-mail practices in your company, make sure everyone is on the same page. When every team member adheres to higher standards of email conduct, the amount of time saved collectively can be astonishing.

Kevin Lawrence is an expert at helping entrepreneurs and business leaders achieve breakthrough results through strategic business development. As a business coach, he helps leaders overcome major obstacles, deal with tough decisions and build higher-caliber teams to increase revenue, profitability and productivity. With more than a decade of experience with hundreds of entrepreneurs and business leaders across Canada, the USA and the Middle East, Kevin has a solid reputation as an agent of change. http://www.coachkevin.com Get the results you want… NOW.

Top 10 Things to Look For in a Web Host

By Amy Armitage in Webmasters

Although this is a “top 10” list, most of the following things could easily be listed as the #1 most important consideration, so take them all seriously. It doesn’t matter if you are a large company, a small one, or just a hobbyist who wants to display photos of hand-painted electric trains. Everyone needs to consider the same things, just to different degrees.

Now, remembering that there is really no firm order to these, let us consider the top 10 things to look for in a web host:

1. Reliability (“uptime”) – Your host should be reliable, stable and fast, and should guarantee its uptime, the minimum figure for which should be 99%. A straight 99% is actually considered low these days, as 99.5% or higher is rapidly becoming the new standard. Check to see if the host provides a prorated refund if uptime falls below the stated benchmark. With how much business a company can lose any time their website is down this crucial aspect of web hosting probably does deserve to be in the #1 spot, but read on for other important info.
2. Data transfer (traffic or “bandwidth”)?– Data transfer mean the number of bytes delivered from your site to its visitors as they browse. If a web host advertises “unlimited bandwidth,” find out how much traffic the particular deal you’re considering really allows. Most new sites that are not archives, storage or “drop-send” sites normally use less than 3GB of bandwidth per month. If you expect your traffic requirements to increase over time, check the host’s policy for “overages.” If there is a charge (usually per additional GB) over the allowed bandwidth, you need to determine if it’s cheaper to pay it once in a while (if it will not be ongoing) or to upgrade your service level.
3. Disk space?– Be on guard against the “unlimited disk space” deals, too, and view them with the same skepticism as you just observed being applied to data transfer. The vast majority of sites need no more than 10-20MB of web space, so don’t fall prey to enticements like 500MB, or “unlimited space.” To get an idea of relative size, a site with about 200 pages and the usual assortment of text, pictures and motion graphics will use only about 10-15 MB for all of the pages and supporting files.
4. Technical support?– Is the tech support 24/7/365? You should probably avoid a host that has no staff working weekends or holidays since things have a habit of breaking down at the worst possible times. A claim of “24/7 support” is not always true, so test the sales pitch by e-mailing or calling on a Friday night or holiday. Measure how long it takes for you to connect with a human being on the other end. In addition response time, ensure that the support personnel are technically proficient. Believe it or not, some tech support personnel are converted sales people “learning on the job,” which is not the kind of help you need in an emergency that threatens your business.
5. Technical features (FTP, PHP, CGI-BIN access, SSI, etc.) –?What once were luxuries are now necessities. Fact is, you simply must have all of these. There are many commercial hosts that require getting their approval to install PHP or CGI scripts, which means that you cannot implement a feature on your site when you so desire. You need these functions if you want to customize error pages, maintain databases, set up additional security measures and so forth. Make sure you have full access to these tools, and find out about any restrictions on their use.
6. Server type?– The operating system and server can be very important, and there are good, practical reasons for choosing one server over another. If you intend to take advantage of ASP, for example, it is available only on a Windows NT/2000/XP server. However, it is often cheaper to go with a Unix system running the Apache server software, which is stable and dependable. Another advantage of Unix-based hosts –using Linux, FreeBSD, etc. – is that an Apache web server lets you create and manage error pages, block IP addresses, stop email harvesters and more, without needing your host to install or approve a thing. Finally, if you plan to do some e-commerce on your site, find out if you get SSL (Secure Socket Layer), MySQL and a shopping cart. At the very least, you will need SSL if you plan to get credit card information from your customers over the Internet.
7. Email services – You have your own domain now, so you probably want e-mail addresses with the domain name. Although the vast majority of plans include e-mail services, find out about the quality and level of auto-responders, mail forwarding? and list management. Ensure that you also have web access to your mail (“webmail”) and investigate the spam tools that are provided.
8. Control panel?– It may be called this, it may be called your “Net Tool Kit,” but all hosts give you a set of utilities to manage the particulars of your web account, and a web page from which to do it, too. You need to be able to manage your e-mail, change passwords, block spammers and so on. These are all standard maintenance chores for webmasters and if you have to wait on your host’s tech support to take care of things, you will lose important control over your business.
9. Price and payment plans –?Naturally, price is always a consideration, but remember that the most expensive hosts are not necessarily the best. Factor in price, and be wary of great price differentials on similar plans. Most web hosts offer annual or even quarterly payment plans that discount the monthly rate, but if you are using a new or less-well-known host, you should consider paying monthly until you establish their reliability. When you are satisfied with the host, you can change your payment plan and grab that discount.
10. Reviews – What do others say about the hosts? Use Google to track down both complaints and congratulations, and consider the source of each comment.

There’s a lot to do, but with your business possibly at stake – or at least the fate of those model train photos – you can’t be too careful. Get the information you need to make an informed decision, and weigh things carefully. You will save yourself a good deal of frustration if you do.

About The Author:
Amy Armitage of Lunarpages Web Hosting (http://www.lunarpages.com/) is a leader in affordable web hosting and dedicated server solutions.  With their great pricing, excellent web hosting affiliate program (http://www.lunarpages.com/affiliate/) and top-notch support, they are the obvious choice for your website and your online business identity.

How To Market On Social Networks – Effectively

By admin in Webmasters

Online social networks, like the World Wide Web itself, are a microcosm of a vibrant human community.  If you participate on services like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace for some time, you’ll notice the same types of people as you might on a trip to the shopping mall or a weekend at the beach.

There is but one difference.  While ‘offline’ you see people, on the Web you see their personality.

Understanding this is core to your effective use of social networks for marketing.
While others will rush into these digital fora blatantly spe.wing advertising messages willy-nilly, you’ll be able to tap into their minds more intelligently.  Because by following some simple principles, you’ll create an online persona that people WANT to engage with and listen to.
Over 2 years of intensely being involved in various social media marketing channels, I have learned some lessons you may find useful too.
Less Is More

When you’re getting started, it is natural to explore many different services.  This ‘flit and fleet, dip and dabble’ approach is often necessary, because each of them vary in significant ways from the other.

But once you find the right one(s) with the ideal mix of audience, features and convenience to suit your personality, stick with it instead of trying desperately to sample all the available alternatives (there are over 1,000 of them as we go to press, so that’s practically impossible).

By honing in on your preferred social networks, you can better carry out the important other steps of engaging your audience and participating actively in your online community.
Engage Your Audience

Be yourself.  Let your personality shine through.  It is your unique advantage over everyone else in the online social media marketing space.

Carried away by the potential to drive more traffic or make more sales, eager marketers often explode on the social networking scene like a bombshell.  They launch into what is the online equivalent of a full-throated sales pitch right in the middle of a Sunday morning sermon in church!

Won’t that shock the others?  Of course.   And then, they’ll ignore you.

Engagement is not instant, automatic or easy.  It is however powerfully effective.  Over 9 months, I have 1,000 ‘followers’ on Twitter.  We share a relationship – even if it is at arm’s length.
Build Your Following

The conventional approach of herding audiences into closed spaces so that you can market to them are long gone.  Social media marketing is not as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.  These fish are swimming in a vast ocean.  You need to reel them in – by using powerful bait… intelligently!

The formula that works consistently is simple.  Be interesting.  If what you share on social networks is useful, valuable, funny, entertaining, new, insightful or soul-stirring, people will find you – and stay with you.

And because control is in their hands, you have little choice in the matter anyway.  Social networks are all about ‘attraction marketing’.  You attract them into your circle – and keep them there.
Be Real

That does not mean you need to reveal every intimate detail of your life, like what you ate for breakfast or what you watched on TV this morning.  Or even where you live, work or play.

It does mean that you should have a persona – and be true to it.  All the time.

I’m a heart surgeon.  I also have a little daughter, love reading, travel to interesting places and blog actively.  All of these aspects of my life make their way into my posts on social networks.
Almost incidentally, I also slip in the stuff that makes my social networking effective – like my Internet infopreneur business and my non-profit Foundation that raises funds to help children from poor families receive expensive, life-saving heart surgery.
Give To Get

Many people are selfish and self-centered.  And these people are on social networks online.  While you may hope and wish it were different, in reality, they do it for what’s in it for them!

To smartly levereage social media marketing, you must take advantage of this knowledge – and give enough value to satisfy your audience, and turn them into raving, loyal fans.

Only then do you ask for something in exchange – a visit, a click, a sale.

When you do this consistently, you’ll notice a reciprocal benefit that grows and swells until you are swamped by a return far in excess of anything you ever gave.
Now, It’s Up To You

Will you make your social networking and marketing effective using these simple insights?

They are deceptively simple.  But when you try following these principles, you’ll discover how effective and powerful they really are.

Another test of their impact is to try and ignore them.  You’ll see how badly social networks can burn you.  But then, you’re not going to try, are you?  No way… You’re smart!

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian is a social infopreneur and uses his Internet marketing to fund heart surgery for under-privileged children in India.  He blogs at Money.Power.Wisdom – http://MoneyPowerWisdom.com – and is on Twitter (drmani), Facebook and MySpace too.

Why You Need Professional Graphics On Your Site?

By Titus Hoskins in Webmasters

Coming from an art background I know a few things about graphics, layout and design. I can usually manage to produce passable graphics for my different sites. But they are just that – barely passable.

Quite frankly, until recently, I didn’t have the money to spend on professional graphics for my sites. Now, as my sites are generating income each day, I can afford to re-invest some of my earnings into professionally produced website graphics.

That’s exactly what I did!

I just wished I had invested funds into these website graphics when I first started online because professional graphics will give you a much better conversion rate. Can’t begin to imagine the revenue I have lost by not having professionally produced graphics by web design specialists or experts. A well-done graphic is worth its weight in gold because you get a much higher response rate.

I am talking from first-hand experience here… for my latest site I invested in some professional graphics and the sign-up rate is much better than for my other sites. Plus, when I added these graphics to my other existing sites, my sign-up rates jumped 25% to 50% – just by adding this graphic beside the sign-up form.

So if you have a product, newsletter, ezine, guide… make sure you place a good graphic or picture right beside your sign-up form… this will increase your conversions and sales. If you’re thinking about creating a new site, consider investing in professional graphics – header, footer, logo… you won’t regret it.

Mainly because most surfers or visitors to your site will be a net-savvy crowd, within seconds they will make the decision if your site is worth their time or not. Unless you instantly project a professional image or site, they will have clicked that back button before they even blink.

Image vs. Trust

In order to have a successful site you must create trust with your visitors. Having custom graphics done will give your site that unique professional look that web-surfers now demand. First impressions are the only impressions you get on the Internet. You must hook your visitor at the first click, or it’s game over. Sad but true.

No matter what kind of site you have, using professional graphics will prove helpful to achieving your goals. These graphics will give your site a fighting chance to at least capture your viewer’s attention and allow time for your brilliant content to reel them in!

Here are some other reasons why you need professional graphics on your site:

- To give and project a professional image

- To give your visitors a tangible image of your product

- To improve the quality of your site for everyone IS a critic

- To help increase your sales or sign-up rates

- To make navigation of your site easier

Always remember, the web has become a very competitive place, you must do everything you can to give your site a competitive advantage over your competition. Professional graphics will make your site stand out; killer graphics will firmly place your site in your visitor’s mind and help them remember your site and entice them to visit it again.

Professional website graphics are very useful tools in creating a consistent overall image of your site. They will aid in your site’s navigation and give your visitor a good impression of your site. Well-designed graphics will help your site project a professional image and keep visitors from instantly clicking that back button. Professional graphics will give your site a fighting chance at making that sale or sign-up. In other words, professional graphics greatly increases your chances of having a successful site. That’s the main reason why you should use them.

The author is a full-time web marketer who owns and runs numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. He contributes his online affiliate success to using the best Internet Marketing Tools: www.bizwaremagic.com and his proven strategies at List Building: www.bizwaremagic.com/opt-in.htm 2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Ask.com Search Engine – A Brief History

By Scott Buresh in Webmasters

As of this writing, there are five top Internet search engines: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com, and while Google and Yahoo! get a lot of the press (particularly lately), the Ask.com search engine is a rather interesting engine that deserves a closer look. This article will cover some of the highlights in its 12-year history, from its start as Ask Jeeves to its innovations, as well as the most recent developments behind the scenes.

The Beginning

In 1996, “Ask Jeeves” was founded by David Warthen, who had founded EyeGames – a children’s video game company, and Garrett Gruener, a venture capitalist. At its start, the concept of the Ask.com search engine was to allow searchers to type questions in natural language in order to get results, rather than to type in a random string of keywords (although that would work as well). The Jeeves character, based on the butler in the Jeeves and Wooster books by P.G. Wodehouse, was designed as the company’s main identifier. (However, the company did not ask Wodehouse’s estate for permission to use this character and legal action was threatened, though the issue was later settled for an undisclosed amount.[1]) Jeeves was phased out in 2006[2] in a humorous manner, with the engine saying he was retiring,[3] and the company was renamed simply Ask.com and the search engine was reborn.

Ask3D and New Innovations

In June 2007, Ask, still one of the top Internet search engines, launched “Ask3D.” Part of this new direction was to allow users to add “skins” – or customized images – to the Ask.com search engine home page. The 3D offering also meant that results would be customized based on the user’s search. This meant that, in a similar manner as Google’s Universal Search concept, a user’s search for a location would get not only pages about that location but also maps and details about it. If the user searched for music, he might also be able to listen to song clips or read news stories about the artist. In addition, the Ask.com search engine included a preview feature for its search results. When available, users can click on an icon of binoculars next to a result and see a small screen capture of that page. Plus, a new toolbar was added to the left-hand side of the page, giving searchers options for narrowing down a search.

Missteps

Ask isn’t shy about going after its main competitors – Google and Yahoo!, two of the top Internet search engines. In early 2007, the company ran a series of ads, primarily in England, without identifying itself as the entity behind those ads. The ads touted an “Information Revolution” and declared that Internet users needed more choices – for a short time, users searching on the Ask.com search engine for Google were given a link to information-revolution.org – an anti-Google site sponsored by Ask.[4] This initiative was not well received,[5]^,[6] as it was seen as attacking the very users it sought to attract.

Also, in mid-2007, the Ask.com search engine introduced “Ask Eraser.”[7] This was Ask.com’s response to searchers’ concerns about privacy and security breaches – a simple way to opt in and have one’s searches erased automatically. The site explains it by saying, “When AskEraser is enabled, your search activity will ordinarily be deleted from the Ask.com search engine servers within a number of hours.”[8] The concept is sound, but many bloggers[9] are not impressed.[10]

What’s Going On Today

Today, Ask is searching – pun intended – for a new direction as it tries to keep its small piece of the search engine pie or regain its state of being at least one of the top Internet search engines. Layoffs are happening, although the company is holding onto Teoma, the technology that powers the engine,[11] and the company is looking to focus on a specific subsection of searchers (women, although the company isn’t specifically saying this[12]) rather than to try to serve as a competitor to the other top Internet search engines, like Google and Yahoo!.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Ask.com search engine can hold onto its existing niche and/or expand its search engine market share. The company seems to be working on finding a direction and a focus, but it just hasn’t yet. I will update you in future articles as to what the status of Ask.com is and whether or not it has managed to remain a key player in the industry.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the founder of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SiteProNews, WebProNews, DarwinMag, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Brown, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue has local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007 by PromotionWorld. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

---

[1] http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3586231[2] http://blog.ask.com/2006/02/thanks_jeeves.html

[3] http://sp.ask.com/en/docs/about/jeeveshasretired.html

[4] http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-03-18-n76.html

[5] http://virtualeconomics.typepad.com/virtualeconomics/2007/03/asks_mistargete.html

[6] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/29/william_davies_ask_vs_google/

[7] http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/askeraser.shtml

[8] Ibid

[9] http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/10/ask-lets-you-delete-your-search-history-yawn/

[10] http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-12-11-n81.html

[11] http://www.searchenginejournal.com/future-of-askcom-layoffs-but-keeping-teoma/6447/

[12] http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2008/03/06/askcom-shifts-their-focus

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

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

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