Starting an Online Store Called givitup

New Photo Gifts

2011-09-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

I recently added another section to my online store of photo gifts using pictures I’ve taken in various places. Since Café Press has a ton of new products it was especially fun to see how the photos looked on all the new items.

Check it out Here

Stock Photography Resource

2011-09-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

Stock Photography Resource

Below is a list of site where you can get web art and photos for your sites. Enjoy!

http://www.istockphoto.com/

http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp

http://www.gettyimages.com/Creative/Frontdoor/theimagebank

http://photo.net/

http://www.webshots.com/homepage.html

http://www.gograph.com/

http://www.freestockphotos.com/

http://www.freeimages.co.uk/

Ten Things That Make A Successful Entrepreneur

2011-02-03T17:47:00.000-08:00

This is a very good article by Theodora Cochrane

Some people say entrepreneurs are born, not made. That’s only partly true. Some people seem to be entrepreneurs from birth. Sometimes the entrepreneurial gene doesn’t kick in until later in life.

Whenever it happens there are ten golden rules any prospective entrepreneur should obey. So get a sheet of paper and let’s get to work. Fill in your qualifications under each heading and see if there are areas that need working on.

1. Motivation. You must be clear about what you want and why you want it. For example, it isn’t enough to say ‘I want to make a lot of money’. What do you want it for? How much do you want? How soon do you want it? How determined to get it are you?

2. Control. You must be prepared to take control of your life. You
decide when you work. You decide where you work. (Work at home, or in the car, or on the beach, etc.) You decide how many hours, days, weeks you work. You decide how much money you make.

3. Prepared to take risks. The life of the entrepreneur is not risk
free. Things can go wrong – BUT – nothing ventured, nothing gained. Learn when to quit and change direction and when to hang in there and weather the storm. If one path isn’t the right one you can always take another. The secret is to keep your eyes open for new opportunities.

4. Resilient. This is very much linked to the previous point. I want
you to think of a tall tree in a high wind. It might thrash about and bend a bit in the gale but only rarely does it break. Why do tall buildings like the Empire State building have a built in factor that allows it to sway in the wind? Both these things can survive intact because they are resilient. They can react to the surrounding conditions and more or less escape serious damage. If they were absolutely rigid they would break under the pressure. The entrepreneur has to be flexible to deal with changes in the marketplace.

5. Enjoy a challenge. Being an entrepreneur is a challenge. It has no place for the ‘what ifs’. (What if it all goes wrong? What if I don’t make any money? What if I’m a failure? What if the sky falls on my head?’) If you’re a ‘what if’ forget about being an entrepreneur and get yourself a nice steady job.

6. Prepared to take the plunge. It’s like standing at the edge of the swimming pool when you can’t swim. Until you take the plunge you will never learn. But every time you do it you become more skilful and the easier it gets. Keep at it and before long you will be diving in from the highest board and coming up smiling.

7. Mix with the right people. There are always people prepared to put you down. Unfortunately these are often family or friends. This isn’t done out of malice, it’s more from a subconscious fear that somehow they’ll be ‘losing’ you – that you are moving onto a different plane. As far as you can you should keep company with fellow entrepreneurs. Take your family and friends with you if you can but never neglect to have regular contact with positive thinkers or you will be dragged back into the daily drudge. Once you’ve shown that you haven’t evolved into some sort of snooty conceited bighead your family and friends might admit that they were wrong!

8. Open to new ideas. Entrepreneurs never consider that they have
reached the highest peak. As soon as they have reached the top of one project mountain they will look for another one to climb. It’s exactly the same adrenalin surge that keeps mountaineers trying for ever more difficult ways of climbing Everest. Others might follow but the prize is to the people who got there first.

9. Willing to learn from others. Be prepared to learn about the skills you will need from other successful entrepreneurs. Attend some of the
bootcamps that are organised. There is one caveat here – don’t become a bootcamp junkie! There are some would-be entrepreneurs who go from one bootcamp to another but never take the plunge and try to put what they have learnt into practice. In other words they keep going to the swimming pool but never actually get into the water.

10. Not content with one success. The true entrepreneur never stops.
Success isn’t the be-all and end-all. As I said before, when he/she has reached the top of one mountain they look for the next one to climb. It’s enervating, it’s fun – and the view from the top is fantastic.

Here’s to your success!

About the Author:
Visit http://www.darkhorsereserch.com or http://www.percydale.com for
more info.

What's most important when starting a new business?

2011-01-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

I love to read forums. Most of the people offer really good and thoughtful advice. The following was in response to the question, what's most important when starting a new business?

Network, Network, and Network Some More
When I started my own firm, an old hand told me that initially (because of no or few customers) there would be a good deal of down time and that time should be used to meet others and network. Later, he said, there would be no time. I wish I had listened. Join the clubs, meet your colleagues, offer free seminars at libraries, join a networking group, take on a teaching job about your profession, offer to write an article for the local paper, join a sports club, go next door and meet your neighbor, and network all of the time! Always have a flyer, card or brochure handy. Have a good contact application on your mobile phone and plug in everyone you meet and what you discussed -- build a contact database. Ask customers for referrals. If you sell widgets, figure out where the widget buyers hang out and get there. One young business woman I know had a neat little tool for needlepoint she sold at her craft store. By word of mouth at her PTA it came to the attention of a big buyer. Network!

Sherpa Marketing

2011-01-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a site that has been extremely useful to me in marketing online.

Founded in January of 2002, Sherpa Marketing, Inc. is a consulting firm that provides useful news, case studies, and best practices data about internet and integrated marketing.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/

Top 11 Free Photo Editors for Windows

2010-02-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Susan Chastain over at About.com has a great list for those needing free photos for their sites. Check it out Here

Identify your competitors

2010-01-08T12:21:00.000-08:00

You may know some of your competitors, but remember; you are working online. There are most likely lots! And they come and go all the time.

Often a company in an adjacent area will change its positioning to try and address your market, or a new startup may emerge in a related area. You need to create a master list of your key competitors and make sure you keep this up to date.

To do this, Google the terms which describe your industry, your products and services. You can also use a little known feature in Google. In the search box, type in "related:www.yourcompanyname.com" and Google will display a list of companies that it considers related to yours. Look for new companies that show up and see if any of these pose a threat.

Mistakes people make with Adwords

2010-01-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Ben Stevens wrote the following article on some mistakes people make with Adwords.

8 common mistakes most people make with google adwords

Tips on Adwords

2010-01-04T17:27:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning out folders and emails over the Christmas break and came across these tips for using Adwords. I tried to follow the link to credit the author, but it was no longer live.

1. Headline, Headline!!

Yes, the headline is by far the most important part of your ad. To make an ad that captures attention, make your headlines as catchy and attractive as possible. Choose relevant keywords that are more likely to be searched for. Usually, a good headline does most of the work!

2. Be Precise And To The Point

Make sure your ads are precise and to the point. Nobody has the time to go through long-drawn-out ads. Include a keyword here and there, and underline it or make it bold, to grab the viewer’s attention.

3. Invest Wisely

Do not invest too much money in these campaigns. Staying within a pre-set budget is essential. It would be wiser to invest around 10$-$15 in the beginning, and then increase the amount as you get returns. Caution is the best precaution, as you stand a risk of losing the entire money you invested in your ads. So, go by the adage ‘thrifty is nifty’, and take it easy with the money.

4. Pre-Advertise

Before you actually launch your product, conduct a small survey, which will identify the people who are actually interested in your product. To do so, release a few ad details in the beginning, so that customers know what they can expect. Evaluate ad performance, and make necessary changes.

5. Track Your Account

Analyze the way your account is performing. Check statistics and create reports. This way, you will know where you are headed, and can adopt changes to your account, according to the situation.

When you use Google Adwords the right way, you can definitely boost your sales. But you do have to be careful to set your budget right, because with Google, it’s easy to overspend if you don’t watch it!

Pay-Per-Click

2009-12-31T15:18:00.000-08:00

I personally don’t use pay per click. But as an online store owner you will of course at least consider it. I had saved an article about how to use pay-per-click (PPC) from 2005 and was going to link to it on site, but it is no longer there. So I will credit Marketing Experiments.com and print the entire article for you. It’s long, but hopefully helpful to you. Plus I recommend their site for lots of useful information. http://www.marketingexperiments.com/

How to use pay-per-click (PPC) search campaigns to boost website traffic and maximize profits from day one: a 90-day plan.

Whether you are launching a new site or simply want to generate a large traffic spike to an existing site, we have found the best way to do this is with PPC advertising.

However, if you don't know exactly what you're doing with PPC, here's what can happen:

1. In your efforts to dramatically grow the number of visitors to your site, you can find yourself over-spending on keywords.

2. If you're paying too much for PPC traffic, your ROI drops and your campaigns become unprofitable.

There is a key point to recognize here.
Some companies will view PPC advertising as an expense, and will not expect to see an immediate, positive ROI, particularly during the early weeks of the campaign.
This needn't be the case.
In this brief we will show you two things:

1. We will show you how we drove 1,644,732 visitors to a new site over a 90-Day period, AND MADE MONEY FROM DAY ONE.

2. We will share with you a 90-Day Plan that will enable you to design and implement the best possible PPC program for your business.

For our testing, we selected a recently launched site that provided useful information using a paid-subscription model. Traffic to the site without pay-per-click was substantial but not spectacular:

Test Site A – Natural Search Traffic
Search Engine May - July 2005
MSN 9,728
Yahoo! 5,371
Google 6,826
Other 1,563
TOTAL 23,488

What You Need To UNDERSTAND: In three months of testing, natural (non-PPC) search traffic amounted to 23,488 unique visitors.

Test Site A – Other Traffic Sources
Search Engine May - July 2005
Other Websites (Links) 17,875
Email and Banner Ads 25,430
TOTAL 43,305

What You Need To UNDERSTAND: In three months of testing, traffic from non-search sources (website links and email) amounted to 43,305 unique visitors.

KEY POINT: Without PPC traffic, we would have generated only 66,793 visitors to our test site. With PPC traffic, we were able to generate closer to 1.7 MILLION visitors.
Here are the results of our test site's PPC campaign over three months:
Test Site A – PPC Traffic

May 2005 June 2005 July 2005
Cost Per Click $0.09 $0.09 $0.09
Total Clicks 549,565 416,785 678,382
Cost $48,731.45 $36,833.87 $61,647.57

What You Need To UNDERSTAND: In a three-month period, we generated 1,644,732 visitors using PPC search marketing. In addition, we were able to optimize our campaign to create an additional 128,817 in July versus May. This is an increase of 23.4%, WITHOUT INCREASING OUR AVERAGE COST PER CLICK.

The strategy for this site was to capture as much of the market share as possible while remaining profitable. It's certainly not difficult to spend a lot of money on PPC traffic, but to do so while maintaining a positive ROI can be a daunting task.
There are a number ways to increase the profitability of a PPC campaign. These include:

1. Buy more traffic that converts at a defined minimum rate. (This minimum rate will depend upon your average order size, profit margin, and other factors unique to your business.)

2. Eliminate unprofitable keywords that drain your marketing budget.

3. Reduce bids on keywords with a negative return on investment (ROI). However, this may also substantially reduce the amount of traffic to the site.

4. Increase the conversion rate of PPC traffic once it has reached your site.

5. Increase the order size of converting traffic.

If you PPC campaigns become unprofitable, keep these points in mind as ways to recover.

The following section describes the protocol used to generate 1,644,732 profitable PPC visits to the test site in 90 days.

90-Day PPC Protocol:

1. Focus. Focus. Focus.
Focus your efforts on one major search engine to start. Google AdWords may offer the greatest potential for most businesses, followed by Overture. You should not completely neglect the smaller PPC engines, but launching and optimizing a PPC campaign is very time consuming and you should focus your efforts on that which will yield the most fruit for the time invested.

Focus on your unique value proposition. Decide what you are selling and what makes you stand out from your competitors. For example, if your price is lower than your competitors', experiment with ads that contain actual pricing information.
Focus on the most relevant keywords. These terms will convert better than words or phrases that are not as appropriate for your offer.

Consider both PPC and natural search, but if you are trying to generate the greatest amount of traffic with the least effort, PPC will create more immediate results. But do not neglect building a spider-friendly site as well.

2. Reap the benefits of a fresh start.

If you are launching a PPC campaign for a new site, you don't have to correct past mistakes and can begin with a well-structured search approach right away. Remember to use:

1. Well-designed landing pages;
2. Optimized ads with relevant keywords;
3. Negative keywords to reduce less relevant traffic;
4. Smart bids (not round numbers);
5. A free, valuable email newsletter to capture the addresses of potential customers so you don't have to pay to reach them again; and
6. A well-organized campaign structure (see below).

3. Build a list of keywords.

Build a list of the keyword "themes," phrases, and single words you plan to target. Build this "map" outside of the constraints of the PPC interface. This will allow you to focus your thoughts and more easily implement the keyword bids over multiple PPC platforms.

4. Stay organized.

The more thoughtful and organized your approach to PPC campaign management, the better your campaigns will perform and the better you will be able to navigate through testing and optimization. Be sure to plan for campaign expansion from the start.

5. Use smart initial bids.

When creating a new Google AdWords campaign, consider bidding higher than you normally would for some important terms. This is an approach unique to Google because it rewards a higher click-through rate (CTR). In a simpler world, CTR would depend solely on the quality of the ad copy. However, your CTR will be higher if your ads appear higher in the search results.

KEY POINT: By bidding slightly higher during initial launch and then gradually lowering your bids, you can achieve and maintain better placement at lower cost per click.

Currently, our test site is one of 16 sites bidding on its most popular word. We hold one of the topmost positions, yet have been paying less than 8.5 cents average CPC (over the last ten days) because of the high historical CTR it built up during initial launch, from which it still benefits.

6. Test your ads.

Set up split-testing to optimize your PPC ads. Optimize for click-through rate, which will help you achieve higher placement at lower cost, especially for Google AdWords.

You can now choose to allow Google to automatically manage your campaigns based on the CTR of your ad creatives. Google will serve the highest CTR ads more often. Note, however, that the ad with the highest CTR may not necessarily be the ad that drives the most relevant traffic with the highest conversion rate.

7. Test your landing pages.

Split-test your landing pages as well. Here, you will be optimizing for conversion.
8. Refine and optimize your campaign.

After 30-60 days, you should be able to evaluate the initial success of your PPC campaign. Have you been able to tap the full potential of this PPC engine, or is there more potential for improvement? Can your ads be better? Have you experimented with keywords in the title copy? Have you utilized the right negative keywords to avoid accidental clicks from unsuitable traffic?

If a desired keyword is too expensive, try to break it down and go after phrases that are more specific. Identify words and phrases that may not receive as much traffic but can be purchased at a lower bid.

Consider creating customized landing pages for specific keywords. Certain types of pages will convert better for some terms than for others.

9. Expand your campaign.

Most companies set up a PPC campaign for terms they know their customers are looking for. But take a step back for a moment. Ask yourself what led your customers to search for those terms. This will often help you find targeted phrases that your competition hasn't thought of.

There are also some online tools that will help you brainstorm keyword phrases. Overture, Google and Teoma will help you identify more relevant keywords with their keyword suggestion tools.

Do not be afraid to go after highly specialized terms. The most specialized terms, while they may see much less traffic, often also yield the highest conversion rates.
KEY POINT: Think BROAD instead of (or in addition to) thinking DEEP. Rather than focusing on getting the number-one position for a few keywords, purchase as many (relevant) keywords as possible. 200 terms at $0.10 per click will usually perform much better than 15 terms at $0.50 per click.

10. Analyze profitability at the keyword level.

Certain keywords will yield a higher ROI than others. To optimize your PPC campaign, analyze the return at the keyword level.

Some words you will eliminate while others may deserve higher bids. But keep in mind that ROI is not the most important metric for your overall business. Your true success indicator should be total net profit, so it may be worthwhile to keep all terms that have a positive ROI, even if they are quite low. Your marketing budget and cash position will be the determining factors here.

Our report on Avoiding Unprofitable PPC Campaigns further clarifies the distinctions and importance of ROI vs. profit.

11. Replicate your successes.

Now expand your campaigns to other PPC search engines.

12. Continually revisit steps 6 and 7. Your ad-copy and landing-page optimization efforts should be recurring, periodic processes as the markets evolve.

This protocol has proven itself over time with hundreds of millions of profitable clicks. Using it will help you launch your own profitable PPC campaigns and achieve a high level of profitable traffic in a short amount of time. As always, however, no formulaic approach to Internet marketing can substitute for your own testing.

Here is Your Great Free Traffic Resource

2009-12-29T16:41:00.000-08:00

Many wonder how people get Facebook to work for their online business. Melissa Ingold gives you an idea:

As social media continues to explode and online communities grow exponentially each and every day, it is becoming more and more important for internet marketers to take advantage of this growing outlet.

Facebook is arguably the most popular social media site available today. Started as a way for college students to keep in touch, Facebook now has millions of users who are using it for new and innovative purposes with every single friend request. So what does this have to do with your internet marketing business? Everything. (note: don’t include “Everything” in the summary please.)

A Facebook page for your online business is a great way to gain exposure, build relationships and ultimately, grow your business. In fact, you may want to consider a personal Facebook page as an additional way to promote your online business as well, maximizing your ability to appeal to a larger group of people and increase connections for both personal and professional purposes.

You can get the ball rolling by becoming a fan of your internet marketing business page and sharing it with others as well. This is a great way to inadvertently advertise your business without coming across sales-y or pushy. The last thing you want to do is alienate your Facebook friends or any members of the social media community for that matter. You will find that it is absolutely critical to gain the trust of those you make connections with because if one friend feels you are trying to “sell” to them, you will immediately gain an irreparable reputation on Facebook that will spread like wildfire. However, handle yourself correctly and you will quickly reap the benefits of Facebook’s network of millions, allowing you to promote your internet marketing business without offending or assaulting people with unwanted advertisements, offers or spam.

So how do you handle yourself correctly? It’s easy really. You will want to send and accept as many new friend requests as you can in order to grow your circle. For your Facebook business page, these friends should also become “fans”. In addition, make sure that you update your status consistently, and that doesn’t mean once a week. It means once, possibly even twice or more a day, depending on how much time and effort you are both willing and can realistically put in. And finally, perpetuate conversation. If someone writes on your wall or sends you a message, be sure to write them back in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, timely in the Facebook world is real-time, so you will want to respond as close to immediately as possible. It will be expected. Wait too long (no more than 5 hours) and you may end up with one less friend.

If it sounds demanding, it is. But remember, it is a free service that when managed correctly can prove to be extremely lucrative for your business and ultimately help to establish you as a qualified, trustworthy online business owner who is on the path to even greater success.

Remember, strangers are only friends you haven’t met yet and Facebook is full of friends who are destined to become customers!

Melissa Ingold is a full-time online business owner who thrives on helping others say good-bye to their J-O-Bs forever. For more action-oriented, quick & easy-to-follow Internet marketing guidance to help you create a low-maintenance, high-profit venture go to Internet Marketing Sweetie

Great American Smoke Out

2009-11-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

The American Cancer Society (ACS) has again announced its annual Great American Smoke Out. This year the event will be Thursday, November 19th. ACS says that a smoker who quits smoking at 35 years old will add 8 years to their life. A smoker who quits at 55 will add 5 years.

http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/1077004

Why Simple Landing Pages Work

2009-10-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

By Bruce Alan

Are you just getting started in Internet Marketing and you want to sell something? Not having your own product, you decide to try affiliate marketing (selling someone else’s product). OK, great…but how do you do it?

You can buy hundreds of ebooks all with different “systems” or strategies and you can find lots of free information as well. Eventually though, you are going to realize that you will need to make some landing pages.

What are landing pages? Landing pages are where you want your visitor to ”land” and once there, you hope they click on your link to go to the sellers website where they will then buy the product.

Why not just link directly to the seller’s website? Why do you need a landing page at all? Well, it depends on how you are going to get your visitor to the seller’s site. A popular way is by writing articles, having them published, and having readers find those articles and click on the links inside them. The problem is that many article sites do not allow direct affiliate marketing links. They will allow links to your website or landing page but not directly to the seller.

You can learn a lot about landing pages by typing in “What are landing pages” in Google. You will find lots of useful information and tips galore on how to make great landing pages. But just like everything else on the Internet, after reading 10 or so different articles, you may be no closer to making one and confused about exactly what you should do.

I believe the best way to get started is by making simple landing pages that pretty much say to the viewer ‘here is the product and here is where you get it“. I don’t do a lot of “pre-selling” on my landing pages and many Internet marketers would disagree with that. The common consensus is that you should warm your visitor up to the sale by reviewing the item and/or telling them how great it is.

The problem with that is that it is difficult to write convincingly about something you know little about. Another problem for beginners is that their writing skills may not be up to par…at least not yet. That is why I recommend setting up something simple at first.

My opinion is that it is my job (or you might say the landing page’s job) to get the visitor to the seller’s website. It is the seller’s job from there to convert the sale. I sort of just open the door for customers to walk through and let the product and shopkeeper do the rest. If they can’t do their job, then I have to at some time move to another product.

I suggest opening a blogger.com account or Wordpress.com account (which are both free) and use those as your landing pages. Make your site as pretty and color coordinated as you can (some people will obviously be better at this than others) and do a lot of copying and pasting graphics and words from your sellers website.

Only use one link to the seller’s website though, as using free blogs for marketing is frowned on and if you overdo it they could suspend you. Ideally you should get your own domain and hosting but that can be done once you start making money. If you have a Wordpress blog you can even go to YouTube and perhaps find a video about the product you are selling and put that in your blog. Looks great and I’ve done it.

Basically you are making a big advertisement that says “This is where you get so and so product”. If the people you drive to your blog want that product, then they will click on the link to find out more. Once they do that, you have done your job. Making a landing page is the easy part…..getting targeted traffic to your website or blog is much harder.

Love at First Sight, Baby Clothes and Gifts

2009-08-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

Anyone who says they don't believe in love at first sight has never had a baby. Our delightful "Love at First Sight" baby tees, bibs and gifts make perfect baby shower gifts.

Shop for your baby gifts here

Vegetarian T-shirts and Gifts

2009-08-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

I’m starting to go more and more toward the Vegetarian lifestyle and have added some fun Veg Out t-shirts and gifts to my online store. Check them out here:

Veg Out T-shirts and Gifts

T-shirts, Buttons and Magnets Show What You Think About What the Government is Doing

2009-07-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but what’s going on in the government right now really annoys me. If you think it’s unfair and maybe even insane, here are some buttons, magnets and stickers you can pass out to like minded friends. Or t-shirts you can wear yourself.

Shop Here

31 Days to Build a Better Blog

2009-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone in business today can benefit from a blog. If you don't have one, you should because most likely your competitor does. Blogs allow you to update your site in minutes - so Google loves them. When you link them to your website it's like driving fresh content there every time you add a post.

Blogs also give the human voice to a business and allow your customers to interact with you.

I just finished taking the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course. Designed by Darren Rowse of Problogger it is packed with helpful information. Hundreds of thousands of us took the course online and let me tell you, it was tough keeping up! Luckily for future students he's come out with a workbook so if you're overloaded with life, you can take your time with the course and get even more out of it.

Here's the link to get the workbook. He's got a 100% return guarantee, so try it!

Click here to view more details

This Recession is Killing My Buzz

2009-04-23T06:04:00.001-07:00

Is the recession getting old for you? I've added some fun t-shirts and buttons to at least deal with it with humor!

http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/6556667

New Inspirational Rectangular Magnets

2009-04-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

I've always written positive quotes and Bible verses down and stuck them everywhere: inside my daytimer, inside the cabinet door where my vitamins are, on the side of the file cabinet next to my desk. In fact that is one reason I started my What I Learned Teaching Sunday School blog - it's a place to not only keep the lessons I've written and taught, thoughts I've had about Christian books, concerts, etc. but to keep all the great quotes and things I've been collecting.

Then that spilled over to my print on demand store and I've got positive and Christian t-shirts and gifts and just started a section of rectangular magnets with uplifting quotes on them. It's a little overboard, but it really helps me to be surrounded by them, so if I start to get down I don't have far to look to read something that will lift me up.

http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/6371093

Free Links to Help Your Business

2009-04-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet today!

http://www.freelinks.com/

Facebook Applications to Promote Your Business

2009-04-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Facebook is growing rapidly and it’s becoming a destination for businesses and business professionals alike to establish a presence. Author Josh Peters shares over 30 Facebook applications to help promote, network, communicate, collaborate and accomplish more with your business.

Read article here

How To Create Offers People Act On

2009-03-27T02:07:00.000-07:00

A marketing issue that baffles and frustrates many small business owners is when they make an offer to sample a product or service they sell and there are no takers.
Example: Why isn't the Phone Ringing?

Diane wants to build her real estate business by attracting more first time home buyers. On her web site's home page, along with the usual listings, she has an offer which reads, Are you buying your first home? Call me for free consultation at 1-800-NEW-HOME.

The offer has been up for six weeks and although people are visiting her website, the phone isn't ringing. Diane is discouraged and wondering if "this Internet marketing stuff really works?"

Has this happened to you? You create an offer--maybe a very generous offer--and no one takes you up on it.

It's really discouraging. I know. It's happened to me more than once.

So what's going on here? Bottom line: your offer may be a good one but you're making it at the wrong time for most of the people visiting your website.
What do I mean by "wrong time"? Here's an example:

Dan and Lisa are married couple looking for their first home. They're great prospective clients for Diane. Lisa is on the Internet checking out homes for sale in the neighborhoods in which they're interested and one of the websites she looks at is Diane's.

Now, let's assume that Lisa sees Diane's offer. Why doesn't she pick up the phone and call?

For the same reason most of us don't pick up the phone and call: we're concerned we're going to get a sales pitch and be pressured to do something we're not ready to do.

Solution: Small Steps Over Time

The way to create offers that people act on is to set up a series of small steps you ask prospects to take over a period of time.

For example, let's say that instead of offering a free consultation, Diane's offer is this:

"Click here to get my free report, The Ten Biggest Mistakes First Time Home Buyers Make."

When a prospect clicks the link they are asked for their email address so Diane can send them the report.

She will get a lot of takers on this offer.

Now that Diane has collected some emails what are the next offers she might make?
She sends those who downloaded the report two emails in the next 30 days that focus on specific points in her report. These emails also include an invitation to subscribe to her weekly ezine.

Those who subscribe receive a weekly ezine with information that's useful to first time home buyers.

In each ezine, Diane includes her original offer for the free 30-minute consultation.
Diane's free consultation offer is still there but prospects see the offer after taking two intermediate steps: (1.) Getting the free report; (2.) subscribing to her weekly ezine.

How Long Does It Take?

Some people will point out, "Yes, but won't it take longer to get prospects to the phone...what she wanted to begin with?" These folks worry that they're wasting time with little intermediate steps instead of just cutting to the chase.

It does take longer. Depending on the service your business provides, it can take anywhere from 8 weeks to several months. And there will be people who read your free reports and ezines for quite a while before they buy something.

But here's why offering small steps is so important. Why several small steps over time work so much better than asking for a giant step right away:

Effective marketing and sales are all about building trust and credibility. As human beings, we develop trust when we experience repeated demonstrations of trustworthiness over time. No matter how persuasive the sales pitch, no matter how many testimonials are in the copy, very few people will make a large financial or emotional commitment at first sight.

They will, however, make small, low cost commitments at first sight. And they will be willing to make larger commitments over time as you demonstrate value again and again.

Final Word

If you are making a generous offer to prospects but very few if any are responding, you may be asking them to do too much too soon. Consider adding at least one low cost, low commitment intermediate offer that gives you the opportunity to build trust over time.

About The Author:
Judy Murdoch helps small business owners create low-cost, effective marketing campaigns using word-of-mouth referrals, guerrilla marketing activities, and selected strategic alliances. To download a free copy of the workbook, "Where Does it Hurt? Marketing Solutions to the problems that Drive Your Customers Crazy!" go to judymurdoch.com/workbook.htm You can contact Judy at 303-475-2015 or judy@judymurdoch.com

Basic Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

2009-02-12T13:54:00.000-08:00

Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication. There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and are continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to increase your sales.

1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do for those who buy them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive, compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to read more and contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers learn what the page is about and make them want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very topside of your page so they cannot be missed. Try to create auto responder messages that will be mailed to those who put their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified periods, you will remind them of the product again. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dump emails with free in them. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail themselves of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100-targeted readers to your site in a day.

Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits to your website in a day, that means you have a chance at making 10 sales.

About the Author:
Eugenijus Sakalauskas
E-Ezine - Free marketing recourses,
website promotion tips
http://ezine.pluginnetproefit.com/
Get FREE info: plugin@freefollowup.com

Internet Marketing - Affordable Efficiency

2009-02-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

Bonnie Jo Davis wrote very solid article on affordable Internet Marketing. These are all good steps to take whether you are just starting out or have been online for a while.

Click here to read the article

No Dream Too Big T-shirts and Gifts

2009-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

I just added a new design to my Dream line in my store. “No Dream Too Big”. I especially like how the no and too are in light yellow, so that at first glance it looks like Dream Big!

Click here to see all No Dream Too Big items

Obama Inauguration Merchandise

2009-01-02T17:52:00.000-08:00

CafePress has hundreds of thousands of designs on over 100 products geared toward this historic inauguration. Shop here to own a piece of the history!

Ten Low-Cost Ways to Promote Your Business

2008-12-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a good article by Susan Ward over at About.com with 10 tips to promote your business. Some are common sense. Some you've heard before. But she does a nice job picking inexpensive tips that online store owners should be doing.

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/a/bizpromotion.htm

Official Twilight Movie Merchandise and More

2008-12-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

CafePress is the official home for fan-designed Twilight Gear. We've also got official Twilight Movie merchandise.

Types of Business Structures

2008-12-07T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here’s an article explaining the six types of business structures, each with its own legal, tax and business ramifications.

Click here to read

How Not to be just a Product Listing Site

2008-12-06T12:45:00.001-08:00

Here’s a quick article that explains that to generate sales, your website has to do a good job of removing some of the confusion by helping the visitor narrow down his choices.

Click to read

The Lucky Thirteen: the critical SEO checklist

2008-11-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

Whether you built your own website or not this is good information for all online business owners to know.

When it comes to SEO not all of us have the time to be experts. At some point the real "gurus" of SEO and other topics are the people with a whole lot of time on their hands. This list, put together with the everyday webmaster in mind, drives home some absolutely crucial points that you should keep in mind when optimizing your pages for valuable search rankings.

1. Check Search Engine Crawl Error Pages

It's important to monitor search engine crawl errors reports to keep on top of how your site and its pages are performing. Monitoring error reports can help you determine when and where Googlebot or another crawler is having trouble indexing your content - which can help you find a solution to the problem.

2. Create/update robots.txt and sitemap files

These files are supported by major search engines and are incredibly useful tools for ensuring that crawlers index your important site content while avoiding those sections/files that you deem to be either unimportant or cause problems in the crawl process. In many cases we've seen the proper use of these files make all the difference between a total crawl failure for a site and a full index of content pages which makes them crucial from an SEO standpoint.

3. Check Googlebot activity reports

These reports allow you to monitor how long it's taking Googlebot to access your pages. This information can be very important if you are worried that you may be on a slow network or experiencing web server problems. If it is taking search engine crawlers a long time to index your pages it may be the case that there are times when they "time out" and stop trying. Additionally, if the crawlers are unable to call your pages up quickly there is a good chance users are experiencing the same lag in load times, and we all know how impatient internet users can be.

4. Check how your site looks to browsers without image and JavaScript support

One of the best ways to determine just what your site looks like to a search engine crawler is to view your pages in a browser with image and JavaScript support disabled. Mozilla's Firefox browser has a plug-in available called the "Web Developer Toolbar" that adds this functionality and a lot more to the popular standards-compliant browser. If after turning off image and JavaScript support you aren't able to make sense of your pages at all it is a good sign that your site is not well-optimized for search. While images and JavaScript can add a lot to the user experience they should always be viewed as a "luxury" - or simply an improvement upon an already-solid textual content base.

5. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML, not images

One of the most common mistakes in web design is to use images for site navigation. While for some companies and webmasters SEO is not a concern and therefore they can get away with this for anyone worried about having well-optimized pages this should be the first thing to go. Not only will it render your site navigation basically valueless for search engine crawlers, but within reason very similar effects can usually be achieved with CSS roll-overs that maintain the aesthetic impact while still providing valuable and relevant link text to search engines.

6. Check that all images include ALT text

Failing to include descriptive ALT text with images is to miss out on another place to optimize your pages. Not only is this important for accessibility for vision-impaired users, but search engines simply can't "take a look" at your images and decipher the content there. They can only see your ALT text, if you've provided it, and the associates they'll make with the image and your relevant content will be based exclusively on this attribute.

7. Use Flash content sparingly

Several years ago Flash hit the scene and spread like wild fire. It was neat looking, quick to download and brought interactivity and animation on the web to a new height. However, from an SEO standpoint Flash files might as well be spacer GIFs - they're empty. Search engines are not able to index text/content within a Flash file. For this reason, while Flash can do a lot for presentation, from an accessibility and SEO standpoint it should be used very sparingly and only on non-crucial content.

8. Ensure that each page has a unique < title > and meta description tag

Optimization of < title > tags is one of the most important on-page SEO points. Many webmasters are apparently unaware and use either duplicate < title > tags for multiple pages or do not target search traffic at all within this valuable tag. Run a search on a competitive keyword of your choice on Google - click on the first few links that show up and see what text appears in the title bar for the window. You should see right away that this is a key place to include target keywords for your pages.

9. Make sure that important page elements are HTML

The simple fact to keep in mind when optimizing a page is that the crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. Anything you've put together in a Flash movie, an image or any other multimedia component is likely to be invisible to search engines. With that in mind it should be clear that the most important elements of your page, where the heart of your content will lie, should be presented in clean, standards-compliant and optimized HTML source code.

10. Be sure to target keywords in your page content

Some webmasters publish their pages in hopes that they will rank well for competitive keywords within their topic or niche. However, this will simply never happen unless you include your target keywords in the page content. This means creating well-optimized content that mentions these keywords frequently without triggering spam filters. Any way you cut it you're going to need to do some writing - if you don't like doing it yourself it's a good idea to hire a professional copy writer. Simply put: without relevant content that mentions your target keywords you will not rank well.

11. Don't use frames

There is still some debate as to whether frames are absolutely horrible for SEO or whether they are simply just not the best choice. Is there really a difference? Either way, you probably don't want to use frames. Crawlers can have trouble getting through to your content and effectively indexing individual pages, for one thing. For another, most functionalities that the use of frames allows is easily duplicated using proper CSS coding. There is still some use for a frames-based layout, but it is still better to avoid it if at all possible.

12. Make sure that your server is returning a 404 error code for unfound pages

We've all seen it. We're browsing around at a new or familiar site, clicking links and reading content, when we get the infamous blank screen that reads "404 page not found" error. While broken links that point to these pages should definitely be avoided you also don't want to create a "custom error page" to replace this page. Why? Well, it's simple: if you generate a custom error page crawlers can spend time following broken links that they won't know are broken. A 404 error page is easily recognizable, and search engine crawlers are programmed to stop following links that generate this page. If crawlers end up in a section of your site that is down through an old link that you missed they might not spend the time to index the rest of your site.

13. Ensure that crawlers will not fall into infinite loops

Many webmasters see fit to include scripting languages, such as PERL, PHP and ASP to add interactive functionality to their web pages. Whether for a calendar system, a forum, eCommerce functionality for an online store, etc. scripting is used quite frequently on the internet. However, what some webmasters don't realize is that unless they use robots.txt files or take other preventative measures search engine crawlers can fall into what are called "infinite loops" in their pages.

Imagine, if you will, a script that allows a webmaster to add a calendar to one of his pages. Now, any programmer worth his salt would base this script on calculations - it would auto-generate each page based on the previous month and a formula to determine how the days and dates would fall. That script, depending on sophistication, could plausibly extend infinitely into the past or future. Now think of the way a crawler works - it follows links, indexes what it finds, and follows more links. What's to stop a crawler from clicking "next month" in a calendar script an infinite number of times? Nothing - well, almost nothing. Crawlers are well-built programs that need to run efficiently. As such they are built to recognize when they've run into an "infinite loop" situation like this, and they will simply stop indexing pages at a site that is flagged for this error.

About the Author: Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.

Free HTML Tutorial

2008-11-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a free HTML tutorial on the web that is fabulous.
Check it out:
Writing HTML

8 Tips to Increase Response in Email

2008-11-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

Email marketing is a great thing to do when you own any kind of business. Here’s an article I found about increasing your response rate, by Paul Easton.

Opt in email marketing is no different than normal direct marketing in that small simple changes will increase your response and success. These tips will help with both plain text and html email:

1. Personalize - "A persons name is still the sweetest sound" Having first name in both the subject of the email, and the body of the message will help your email get read and not just deleted or being mistaken for junk mail.

2. Free - Offer something free: It's an over used word on the Internet, but it still works. It must 100% free, not an item you have to pay postage and packaging for. Otherwise your user who checks out your offer will feel cheated.

3. Tracking - Always track any promotion, which means using tools that will allow you to track responses and conversion of visitors to sales. A good service to use is adminder: http://www.adminder.com Tracking also allows you to find out what information is most important to your readers.

4. Talk - When you write your email copy, write as if you are having a one-to-one conversation with the recipient. This makes your customer feel like a real person and not a number.

5. Short but informative - Provide the information in a short and clear method showing the main information using short paragraphs of 3-4 lines making it easy to read or skim over. Using bullet points and line space between paragraphs to highlight important points.

6. Benefits not features - Show what the item or service can do for your customer, not what its features are.

7. Call to Action - Use a sense of urgency with ease of contact.

8. Easy to contact - Use a clickable link such as http://site.com or mailto:you@yoursite.com
This format will create a click on link in most email programs. If you are marketing internationally you will need a format suitable for American On Line -- The biggest US ISP. Something like this: [ AOL Users Click Here ]

Always test and target to your market, response rates can be up to 20% with the right message. Trial and error will prove you right or wrong. The power of the promotion to an in-house list is something very over looked. The list must have agreed to receive information (opt-in) from you or you just become junk email.

About the Author:
Paul Easton is a self confessed Internet Marketing Nut and Editor of "Power Promotion Plus" -- An ezine dedicated to web site promotion tools that work with 3 free gifts for subscribing Check it out here: http://www.Digitalawol.com/?source=Article

New Inspirational Dream T-shirts and Gifts

2008-11-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve been adding lots of new designs to my online store. I especially like my dream designs that I’ve put in my Inspirational T-shirts and Gifts section.

They fit the positive theme of my entire store: nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough! Set your mind to it and go after your dream! givitup's inspirational tees and gifts will help keep you motivated.

Inspirational T-shirts and Gifts

My Flip Mino Press Release

2008-11-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

I wrote and sent out a bunch of press releases about adding Flip Minos to my online store. Here’s the release:

Hickory, NC, November 3, 2008 – Online store, givitup, is pleased to announce the addition of custom designed Flip Minos

givitup, is part of CafePress, who recently announced a branded partnership with Pure Digital Technologies, makers of the wildly popular Flip Mino Camcorders. By teaming up together, video lovers can now take their movie-making creativity one step further by customizing their Flip Mino camcorders.

Nancy Geiger, owner of givitup, says, “It’s a perfect partnership. The amazing growth of CafePress shows how much consumers enjoy designing their own T-shirts, mugs, posters and books. CafePress shopowners are on the cutting edge of new trends and Flip Minos are very hip.”

"We're a destination for self-expression," says Amy Maniatis, vice president of marketing at CafePress, calling CafePress a "me-tailer." The company has seen its sales increase 40% year to year.

"Skins were fun and a trend for the last few years, but they can get messy and peel off," Maniatis says. "We're printing directly on the camera. It's a high-gloss print, more strong and durable."

Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of Pure Digital, says, "This generation wants to be famous, tell their story and be heard, change the color of their hair, wear tattoos and express themselves. It goes beyond the clothes and watch you wear and extends to the cellphone or camera you hold."

The ultra-thin & pocket-sized Flip Video Mino camcorder has a handy USB arm that flips out and hooks up to your PC or Mac. This charges the battery, plus lets you use its built-in software to easily view, edit, and upload video and photos to favorite sharing sites. It records 60 minutes of VGA-quality video.

givitup opened almost three years ago focusing on giving up negativity. “We believe there are too many negative and vulgar t-shirts out there. givitup is all about fresh starts, positive attitudes and becoming a better person. We believe people can alter their lives by altering their attitudes. And by wearing positive and inspiring thoughts people are reminded of good things all day.

Besides the Flip Minos, givitup has over 9300 items with its own designs: t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, buttons, magnets, stickers, aprons, journals, greeting cards, postcards, teddy bears, mugs and more. Customers may also send in their own designs or text for any of givitup’s products.

32 Most Important SEO Tips

2008-11-02T17:41:00.000-08:00

I found a good article by Edwin Reyes that will help you with SEO on your website:

1. Make sure your site is not under construction or incomplete with little or no unique content.

2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submitting to other search engines but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Also submít your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, etc.

3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)

4. Offer a sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)

5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but the same content.

6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keyword stuffing.

7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.
8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.

9. Your Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.

10. Your Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters, including spaces. (about 25-30 words)

11. The keywords Meta Tag must be 15-20 words maximum.

12. Optimize pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site's primary keywords.

13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.

14. If your site contains dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engine spiders have difficulty indexing dynamic pages.

15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a link farm by search engines.

16. Use lynx.isc.org as text browser to check your site.

17. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.

18. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since your site was last crawled. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.

19. Use a Robots.txt file to manage and control search engine spiders that index your site. You can allow and disallow spiders and choose directories you want to be crawled and indexed. With bad bots or spam bots you need to modify your HTACCESS file to properly and effectively manage bots or spiders.

20. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.

21. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engine ranking.

22. Avoid links to bad neighborhoods such as web spammer, link farm, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, pörn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affect your search engine rankings.

23. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.

24. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings or perform other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a spammer.

25. Do not use hidden text and links. Show the search engines what you show to your vistors. It will greatly affect your site's reputation.

26. Do not attempt to create pages that contain phishing, scam, virus, trojan, backdoor, spyware, adware or other malicious programs.

27. Make your site useful and informative.

28. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links is far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site's visibility, popularity and ranking. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.

29. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.

30. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some use illegal and questionable methods to improve rankings.

31. Do not buy or sell links.

32. Do not create sites that contain purely affiliate links and no valuable content that is useful to users.

I hope these tips will add more popularity and visibility to your site. Enjoy!

About The Author
Edwin Reyes is a Web Developer and the Webmaster of Findmesoftware.com, a Philippine based website that provides free software downloads, tools, reviews, online tips, blogging resources, tutorials and Free SEO Tools and Software Download.

Twilight T-shirts and Gifts

2008-10-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

CafePress and Summit Entertainment have launched an official Twilight Movie fan portal on the CafePress website. This is exciting as the agreement allows shopkeepers to create official fan merchandise for the portal which will be linked from the official Twilight Movie website.

Twilight Merchandise

Christmas is coming. Is Your Online Store Ready?

2008-10-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Do you have a plan to woo holiday shoppers looking for gifts online?

Millions of people are about to descend on the Internet, and competition for their dollars will be tough this year, with money tighter amid a weak economy. You need an online-marketing plan to help you make the most of the season.

Feel overwhelmed? Don't. There are many easy, yet high-impact, things you can do in the next few weeks that will improve your results once the bustle begins. Here are some of the top tips from Riva Richmond.

Click here to read.

The 10 Key Steps to Successfully Market Your Business Online

2008-10-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

Here’s a helpful article I found by Richard D. Harroch, the author of The Small Business Kit for Dummies and other books and publications dealing with start-up and emerging companies. You may email him at rharroch@orrick.com

More and more small businesses are finding it essential that they market their products and services online. Customers are increasingly turning to the Web to research companies, compare product features and prices, and to purchase online. A company that does not take advantage of the Web and email to market their business can lose valuable customers.

It has never been easier or more cost-effective to market online. There are numerous Web sites, consultants, software packages, and other tools to help you implement a successful online presence.

Here are 10 key steps to successfully marketing your business onlne:

1. Obtain a Good Domain Name. Before you establish a Web site for your business, you need a domain name. A domain name is the internet address that allows computer users to find your Web site, such as www.Microsoft.com or www.BananaRepublic.com. Good domain names are difficult to obtain, as millions have already been purchased over the years. The most common domain names end in ".com" or ".net" and are seen as the most desirable.

It's easy to check whether a domain name is available. For example, Yahoo.com has a domain name service check and you can do a check in under a minute. The cost on Yahoo to purchase a domain name is under $10.

A few key tips on domain names:

Make sure the domain name hasn't been trademarked by someone else (check www.uspto.gov); Make sure it's easy to spell; Make the name easy to remember. But simpler and descriptive may be better — you don't have to come up with something as catchy as "Google" — and non-descriptive names require more branding effort.

2. Build a Professional Looking Web Site. Your Web site is a reflection of your business. People who come to your Web site can be impressed or turned off by the professionalism of your site. There are several approaches to building a Web site. First, there are plenty of sites (including Yahoo) that will give you templates for a site either for free or very cheaply. Second, there are professional site building consultants who will custom-build a site for you. And, third, there are multiple software packages available to help you build your own site.

3. Make Your Web Site Easy to Navigate and Make it Easy to Find What You Are Trying to Sell. Don't get caught up in trying to come up with dazzling flash and color for your site. The key to a good site is to make sure the viewers can easily find what they are looking for. This means a clear navigation bar and a good "search" box. Take a look at some of the great sites out there, and sites from competitors. That can help you plan how your site should be designed.

4. Build up Your Email List. One of the best and cheapest ways to sell online is through email marketing. It's a great way to communicate with customers and prospective customers. So it is very valuable to collect email addresses from visitors to your Web site. Offer them something worthwhile for their email address—such as a discount or a free newsletter.
Make it easy to get someone's email address, but also be sure that you have set forth a Privacy Policy on your site describing how you will use any personal information. And be sure you are up-to-date on the laws affecting email marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act.

5. Send Periodic Email Newsletters. Email newsletters can prove to be effective communication tools for existing customers, prospective customers, and other key audiences.

What are the hallmarks of effective email newsletter programs? Here are 6 tips:

Keep it reasonably short. Nobody wants to read lengthy emails. Make it well designed and visually interesting. Include photos and graphics. Provide multiple links back to your Web site. Make it look professional. Don't have typos, a sloppy look, or broken links. Include an easy way for the viewer to contact you and to unsubscribe from your email list. Constantly test and track how your newsletters are doing.

Email newsletter programs can be established through companies that provide turn-key solutions, such as Constant Contact

6. Buy Banner Ads. You can enhance visibility and traffic to your site by buying banner ads. The keys to effective banner ad campaigns are:

Make the ad visually interesting with links to a particular offer or "landing" page on your site. Place the ads on sites relevant to your business. Constantly monitor and test the efficacy of the ads, measuring not only click-throughs from the ad to your site, but also the actual resulting sales and return on investment.

7. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines. Hundreds of millions of searches a day are performed on the Web through Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. The search engines "spider" billions of Web pages. There is a fast growing area called "search engine optimization" that refers to efforts you can employ to get your Web site to show up higher in search results. To get more information on this, go to the search box on the AllBusiness home page, select "the Web" from the drop-down menu, and type in "search engine optimization."

8. Buy Keyword Ads on Search Engines. Many businesses are finding that key word advertising on search engines can be quite beneficial. Here's how it works: If you sell computer books from your Web site, you might buy a small ad or listing on Google that would show up when someone types in the search box a term that you designate (such as "computer books" or "PC books"). If the searcher sees your paid ad and clicks on it, he is transported to your Web site and you pay on a "CPC" basis to Google (a cost per click, such as 30¢ a click). The goal is to get qualified prospective customers to your site.

The key elements of successful key word ad buying programs include:

Purchase the most relevant key words. Write the ads in a way to compel qualified buyers to click on the ad. Send the user from the ad to a landing page in your site that sets forth the precise product or service related to the keyword ad. Sending a viewer to your home page is generally not as effective as sending them to a specific product page. Constantly review the amount you are paying per click, and the conversion of that click into buyers. Constantly test different ad copy and different landing pages to determine what works best for your site.

9. Make it Easy to Buy From Your Shopping Cart. If you are selling products from your site, you will need a shopping cart system and a credit card authorization process. Many companies provide such systems off the shelf, such as Yahoo! Small Business. The key here is to make sure the shopping process is fast and efficient. Many Web sites have found that their checkout process was too cumbersome, and that they lost potential buyers who became frustrated with the amount of time and effort involved.

10. Provide Great Customer Service. A satisfied customer will return to your site. So go out of your way to give great customer support and service. And for those who are not happy with their experience, try to turn them around with an offer of a discount, a free product, or some other benefit.

Thoughts from Guerilla Marketing

2008-09-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve always loved reading the Guerilla Marketing books. Here are some tips from Jay Levinson and Amy Levinson. Guerilla Marketing

“You may think you know why your customers buy from you, but there's a good chance they buy for reasons other than the reasons you think. Or they don't buy for reasons that may escape you.

People seek a wide array of benefits when they're in a buying mindset. If you are communicating any one of those benefits to the people who want them this very instant, you've virtually made the sale. People do not buy because marketing is clever, but because marketing strikes a responsive chord in the mind of the prospect, and its resonance makes that person want the advantages of what you are selling.

Your customers do not buy because they're being marketed to or sold to. Instead, they buy because you help them realize the merits of owning what you offer.

They often buy because you offer them instant gratification -- such as I sought when El Nino flexed his muscles and my roof began to leak. Sprinting to the yellow pages, I called the one roof repair company that offered emergency service, for there I was, smack dab in the middle of an emergency.

It was an easy decision for me. The company offered just the benefit I needed. I was in the market for a specific benefit and there it was, grinning up at me from the directory. If the company's ad heralded their new roofing materials, I would have ignored it.

Like most people, I was looking to buy a benefit, not a feature. Everybody knows that. But the truth is that people don't always buy benefits. They buy a whole lot more:

· They buy promises you make. So make them with care.

· They buy the promises they want personally fulfilled.

· They buy your credibility or don't buy if you lack it.

· They buy solutions to their problems.

· They buy you, your employees, your service department.

· They buy wealth, safety, success, security, love and acceptance.

· They buy your guarantee, reputation and good name.

· They buy other people's opinions of your business.

· They buy expectations based upon your marketing.

· They buy believable claims, not simply honest claims.

· They buy hope for their own and their company's future.

· They buy brand names over strange names.

· They buy the consistency they've seen you exhibit.

· They buy the stature of the media in which you market.

· They buy the professionalism of your marketing materials.

· They buy value, which is not the same as price.

· They buy selection and often the best of your selection.

· They buy freedom from risk, granted by your warranty.

· They buy acceptance by others of your goods or services.

· They buy certainty.

· They buy convenience in buying, paying and lots more.

· They buy respect for their own ideas and personality.

· They buy your identity as conveyed by your marketing.

· They buy style -- just the kind that fits their own style.

· They buy neatness and assume that's how you do business.

· They buy easy access to information about you, offered by your website.

· They buy honesty for one dishonest word means no sale.

· They buy comfort, offerings that fit their comfort zone.

· They buy success; your success can fit with theirs.

· They buy good taste and know it from bad taste.

· They buy instant gratification and don't love to wait.

· They buy the confidence you display in your own business.

It's also important to know what customers do not buy: fancy adjectives, exaggerated claims, clever headlines, special effects, marketing that screams, marketing that even hints at amateurishness, the lowest price anything (though 14 percent do), unproved items, or gorgeous graphics that get in the way of the message. “

Palin Power T-shirts, Buttons and More

2008-09-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about Sarah Palin! Finally I can get excited about this election!
I loved her speech too!

So I added a Palin Power section to my store full of t-shirts, buttons, magnets, stickers, yard signs, mugs and much more.

Click here for all Palin merchandise

Twilight Movie Gifts

2008-08-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

A friend who is a teacher and also a huge Twilight fan asked me to make some magnets for her teacher friends using the standard code for asking for a sub so they can have a day off. That day being the date the Twilight movie opens on December 12th.

They are a cute idea and I’ve added other Twilight merchandise also.
Twilight

Here's an example of some of my other designs:

Internet Marketing Blog

2008-08-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Here’s a blog I came across about Internet marketing, which I think is pretty helpful:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4091/The-Single-Most-Important-Ingredient-in-Your-Internet-Marketing-Strategy.aspx

30 Most Useful SEO Tools for Internet Entrepreneurs

2008-07-03T17:02:00.001-07:00

Here are the top 30 SEO tools that will help promote, increase your website ranking, and sales.

http://blog.webbizideas.com/30-most-useful-seo-tools-for-internet-entrepreneurs/10/

Garfield’s 30th is Birthday is June 19th!

2008-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Shop for fun Garfield T-shirts and Gifts for any age at:http://www.cafepress.com/garfield

101 Free Offers and Coupons to Advertise Your New Site

2008-06-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here are 101 Web sites that offer budget-conscious business owners the tools they need to publicize their company without going broke.

http://www.insidecrm.com/features/marketing-startup-budget-051208/

100 Best Marketing Tips

2008-05-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was looking at a blog called Small Business Trends and they offered a downloadable PDF document made up of the 100 best marketing tips that readers sent in. She said we could share, so here you go: Download your copy of 100 Best Kept Marketing Secrets here.

Graduation Gifts

2008-05-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

Your gift will stand out when you give your graduate a unique and fun gift! If they are graduating from high school and going to college in the fall, email us the name of the college and we’ll put it on your choice of 102 products.

http://givitup

Or order this clever set of 8 postcards, stamp them and address them to the graduate’s mom and dad:

http://givitup

Whether high school or college, any graduate will like this attractive Class of 2008 pillow

http://Lesruba designs

It’s June! Time to get Married!

2008-05-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Weddings are so much fun and every girl’s dream. So do it up big! Go all out!
Here’s an online store that has something for everyone involved:

Bride T-shirts, groom T-shirts, and other bridal party apparel and gift ideas for the bride and groom as well as every member of the wedding party including maid of honor, matron of honor, bridesmaid, flower girl, mother of the bride and groom T-shirts and tote bags, hoodies and shirts for the groomsmen, best man, ring bearer and father of the bride and groom, as well as other family members and the wedding planner!

http://www.cafepress.com/weddingsareus

And of course the perfect gift for the bride:

A Bride's Cookbook at givitup

How to boost sales by Internet Marketing

2008-04-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Day797
Internet Marketing, also known as Online Marketing, Online Advertising or Internet Advertising, is the promotion of products and services over the Internet. Internet Marketing, in fact, aims to create a better business opportunity for an organization by promoting its products or services using online media; hence, businesses - both online and off line - are increasingly making use of Internet Advertising as part of their marketing strategy.

Initially, Internet Marketing was all about building a website or putting up banner/display ads on other websites. A website with appropriate text content, image inclusions and audio/video features is indeed an excellent option of reaching out to global audience and informing them about a company's products/services, their features, et al. The website remains the basic building block of Internet Marketing even today; however, it is now being blended with key web site promotion techniques in order to achieve the advertising goals.

Internet Marketing Key Techniques

Search Engine Marketing Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the process of marketing or advertising a website via search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and others. Two totally different approaches are followed for Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization and Pay per click Advertising.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a web site promotion technique that improves the site's organic ranking in searches based on select keywords/phrases and attracts more web traffic. If you have an Internet Business, SEO is something you cannot simply do without.

Pay per click or PPC Advertising which appear as links next to the organic results on search engine result pages involves listing a website by bidding on keywords. PPC calls for methodical keyword selection/optimization so that the keywords match with the search terms used by target segment of users and capably increase web site traffic.

Pay for inclusion (PFI) listing in website directories is another popular SEM technique.

Email Marketing Email Marketing is the method of conveying information about a product or service through email. After the initial glitch (on account of spamming), email marketing has been effectively used for web site promotion. These days, of course, it is permission based email marketing that is being practiced and internet businesses are using the opt in lists, giving the customers the right to refuse further communication.

Mass mailing and e commerce newsletters are two popular e-mail marketing tools.
Banner Advertising Banner Advertising is an Internet business marketing technique, which revolves round placing dynamic graphic ad links in others sites. Users require clicking these links to open your website.

Online Promotion Techniques Different online promotion techniques or Social Media Marketing Methods, like posting blogs, comments and opinions as also press releases (related to the product or service) in a discussion forum are also effective Online Advertising processes. Article Marketing involves listing articles in article directories, article repositories and/or article banks.

Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is a rather innovative and interesting form of Internet Marketing, wherein marketers promote and sell other products/services as part of a program planned by the product manufacturers and/or service providers. The affiliate is either awarded a flat fee or receives a good percentage of the sale proceeds.

The Social bookmarking sites are a great help for people with affiliate marketing programs because such sites are a free and effective way to get back links and drive traffic to websites and blogs.

These are some of the most effective Internet Marketing techniques that work on a personal level to promote a website, increase web site traffic and add to the profitability of the Internet Business. Of course, one does not need to follow all the techniques or strategies for a successful Internet Marketing campaign; instead, it is careful planning and meticulous execution that help achieve the goals of Internet Marketing or Online Advertising

Author: Dipti Pathak is a freelance writer. She has been writing online articles on various topics since 2003. She provides SEO consultancy to SwamiSEO.

7 Easy Ways to Romance the Google Bot!

2008-04-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Day787
This article by Natalie Revell (see her resource box at bottom) has a lot of great information in it, but I especially like the fun way it’s written!

For most of us, Google is a hard nut to crack. Efforts upon efforts are put forth to increase your site's SEO and while your efforts are working in other search engines, they just seem slow when it comes to Google. So what do you do? Try romance!

Yes, romance. Who isn’t looking for romance? Non-human bot or not, the Google Bot also wants it. It wants to be romanced and feel the love from your site. If it doesn't, oh, look out! Just like a scorned woman, you are going to pay. Come on, everyone knows what I mean. It's either "Penalty City" or "the silent treatment". It all depends on what you did or didn't do.

If you really screwed something up on your site, Google is going to make you pay. This is Penalty City. Google may even take a point away from your ranking or just entirely drop you from its index. Yikes! If you actually get dropped from the index, good
luck trying to get picked back up.

If you didn't screw up, but you're not really doing anything to get the Google Bot's attention, you are going to get the silent treatment. This is when Google acknowledges the existence of your site but pretty much gives you no communication or reaction at all and just goes on about its business.

Google is female!

Because of these two reactions described above, I'm absolutely convinced Google is female. And I can say that because I am female. So, what should you do to romance the Google Bot and get on the good side of this heavy weight engine? You should
make Google's job easier. It's just that simple.

There are several things you should do actually, but we're just going to focus on the major ones. For now though, let's think about the Google Bot's job in order to understand the Google Bot better. The better we understand the bot, the better chance we have of winning it over with our romance techniques.

The Google Bot's Job

Think about it. What a feat it is to have to go through a gazillion, trillion websites reading text and following links to make sure everything is not only properly indexed, but that it
is properly working. When things are not in order on your site, such as a broken link, this makes the Google Bot have to stop. This does not make the Google Bot happy. It wants a clean, safe path to travel as it has many places to go. It doesn't like to
be tripped. That's just not nice.

Once it has retrieved all of your site's information, it still has to take that information back to the Google database, then go back out to another site and do it again. Then it has to bring that information back to the database. Then go back out again, etc. You get the idea. And it has to visit each site every so often to keep the indexing updated. Let's just say the Google Bot's little feet are extremely tired all of the time. Especially considering this goes on 24/7, nonstop. The poor little Google Bot. We need to help it out. When we do help it out, it tends to like us.

7 Easy Ways to Romance the Google Bot

Remember the primary purpose of any search engine is to offer the best, most relevant websites to its searchers.

1) Remember also that Google is a META crawler search engine, so one thing you can do to offer up some romance to the Google Bot is to ensure all of your META tags are done properly. That is pretty much like a bouquet of roses right there. You can use this source to ensure your tags are properly done: http://webdesign.about.com/od/metatags/a/aa111600a.htm

2) Want to throw in a box of chocolates? Make sure all your links are working properly. This helps out your searcher too, by the way. If you want to run a searcher off, frustrate them to no end by letting them click on a broken link and see how fast they exit your site.

3) How about giving a bottle of perfume? Try adding a robots.txt file. The Google Bot loves these files. This is like an invitation to come index your site. Every site should
have one of these, but most don't. Those that do really stand out to Google. Just like anything else though, make sure it is done correctly. One wrong character in one of those codes can send you packing, my friend. You can create these files very simply in Notepad. To learn how to properly create a robots.txt file and where to place it (in your root directory of the home page), please see: http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html.
Another good resource is: http://www.outfront.net/tutorials_02/ adv_tech/robots.htm

4) Now what could possibly be like giving the Google Bot a diamond necklace? How about a Google-Friendly Site Map. Knowing the job of the Google Bot, why not make the bot's job easier? I can hear the Google Bot now saying, "Thank goodness for this map. Finally, a site that gets me! I mean it...a site that finally gets it!"

A Google-Friendly Site map not only wins you favor with the Google Bot, it helps you out as well. To create a Google-friendly site map, see http://gsitecrawler.com/ , which is
also Yahoo-friendly:

* The SEO on your website will benefit as any correctly
designed Google-friendly Site Map will ensure all web pages
are found and properly indexed.

* If any pages are not indexing properly, the program will
advise you. This includes advisement on broken links,
blocked links, etc.

* You get an inside scoop as to how Google views your website
and you can cater your efforts accordingly.

* Google will tell you what it concludes your site is about
based on your content. If you don't have the proper message,
change it!

* Google gets notified when something on your site is new or
has changed.

5) Why stop now? Keep going with your romantic interlude and also present the Google Bot with champagne and strawberries by using bold, keyword rich headers on each of your web pages. Don't make the bot guess and have to dig to find out what the
page is about. Just tell it up front and then reconfirm your message throughout the rest of the content.

6) Add a day at the spa by keeping your content clean, relevant, an easy read, and keyword rich with properly placed keywords. There is a proper way to pepper in your keywords to make the content SEO-friendly without making your content choppy. Your
searcher must also be able to read the content in a good flowing manner, so be sure to write for the searcher also, not just the bot.

7) You can also add a day at the beach by not using Flash. Females usually like flashy things, but not this one. Not Flash technology anyway. Flash is built in frames and it stops the Google Bot dead in its tracks, confuses it, and then nothing gets indexed. Not good! If you are dying to have Flash, then try keeping it in your banner only. Home page banner only is even better, if you are carrying your banner to all inner pages as well. While Flash is very eye appealing if not over done, it is a big no-no for SEO.

Put these 7 romantic techniques into action and see what happens. What do you have to lose? Any results that come from proper use of these techniques beats a trip to Penalty City or getting the silent treatment any day.

Author Natalie Revell is the eMarketing Director/Owner of Write Ink Marketing, http://www.writeinkmarketing.com/ . WIM offers many services and continues to grow. Natalie is currently working on becoming a certified eMarketer. You can contact her at
natalie@writeinkmarketing.com, or by visiting the site and filling out the contact form.

This Article printed from SEO-News: http://www.seo-news.com

Maternity T-shirts

2008-04-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

When you work online so much you need to mix things up a little to avoid burnout! So I put a couple new maternity t-shirts on my store for fun.

I thought with my “Baby Bump” maternity tees celebrities could help the press out. There's always so much speculation about “Does she have a baby bump or just eat too much?” Now they’ll know!

And I couldn’t resist, “Does this Baby Make Me Look Fat?”

Maternity Section at givitup

7 Search Engine Tips for Non Webmasters

2008-03-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Day778
This is a really helpful article I found by Jinger Jarrett (her bio is at the end) Learn and enjoy!

With all of the changes to the search engines these days, you can drive yourself crazy trying to get your site submitted. Unless you are willing to commit yourself to doing it full time, or you are a search engine expert, you won't rank at the top of the engines. However, this doesn't mean that you should neglect this important means of getting traffic to your site.

Unlike most of the methods for promoting your business, which came from the offline world, this method is different. It's unique, and it is changing and growing at a rapid pace. By at least informing yourself of the basics, you can make this a more effective method for driving traffic to your site.

Below are seven tips you can implement to get started:

1. Understand the Relationships of the Various Search Engines. Before you can know where to submit, you need to understand how all of the various search engines are related so that you don't duplicate your work, or worse, get banned from submission.
Now, mind you, I am no search engine expert. However, I have been watching closely what is happening, and here is what I have seen so far:

Recently, Yahoo, a directory, acquired All the Web, Altavista, Inktomi and Overture. Yahoo is no longer going to be using search results from Google as its backend.
Although it remains to be seen what role All The Web and Altavista will play, Inktomi will only provide limited offerings in Yahoo because Yahoo announced that Inktomi's paid inclusions would not be included in its results.

Overture, the number one pay per click search engine, provides paid results to 80 per cent of the major search engines and will continue to do so. It will also be providing backend results to Yahoo. Overture provides results to major sites like HotBot and MSN.

Yahoo is adding its own search engine and will continue to offer its paid directory at $299 a year.

Currently, MSN and Yahoo, the number two and number one sites respectively on Alexa, are battling for supremacy. Bill Gates is also working on a new model for his search engine, but it remains to be seen what that will be.

Eventhough Google will no longer be providing backend results to Yahoo, Google is still a major player. It is also the number one search engine in the world. Google gets some of its results from the Open Directory Project, a volunteer effort to create a directory of the best sites on the Internet.

Looksmart is still out there, but it appears to have changed its model to a pay per click. You can get started for free, but you'll have to pay for each click. (NOTE: I found this site hard to navigate to answer the most simple questions. Maybe that's why it's the least relevant of the options available.)

Finally, you have Alexa, which is in a class all its own. You definitely want to get your site submitted here because it's a great way to find out who is linking to you, where you rank, and other statistics about your site. Back end results for Alexa are provided by Google.

The easiest way to track your site using Alexa, is to download a copy of the toolbar. You can get it here: http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/htmlfiles/alexa.html

2. Prepare Your Site for Submission. Now that you know where to submit your site, you want to prepare your site so that it gets accepted.

The best tool to help you is Good Keywords: http://www.goodkeywords.com This free utility will let you search for the best keywords to use on your site.

Key words, however, are only part of the equation. You will also want to create a good title and description. Take your time when you create these. You want each to be key word rich, and the right length.

Once you've written your title, keywords, and description, then all you need to do is to create the metatags for your web site. You'll find all the tools you need at Evrsoft - http://www.evrsoft.com/, including a link popularity checker, submission to over 100 search engines, search engine analyzer, and a metatag generator.
Once you have used the metatag generator to create your metatags, then all you have to do is paste it into the header of your web page.

You will want to check your metatags first to make sure they aren't too long and are search engine friendly. You'll find a metatag analyzer here: http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/meta-check.html

This one is stricter than the one I use, but it works very well.
Let me emphasize here that this step is absolutely crucial to getting your site accepted. You would be amazed at how many professionally done web sites skip this step.

3. Submit Your Site. Now that you have your site ready, you want to start submitting. You will use your title, keywords, and description again here.
Here is your submission list:

Free
Alexa - http://pages.alexa.com/help/webmasters/index.html#crawl_site
Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html Open Directory
Project - http://dmoz.org/add.html
Fast Submit - http://www.evrsoft.com/fastsubmit/ - Submission to 100 of the top search engines. (Caution here: some of these sites may ignore or ban you if you are a business site).

Paid
Google Ad Words - http://services.google.com/marketing/links/ads_us/adwords/ - Pay
Per Click Inktomi - http://www.inktomi.com - Yearly Fee Per Url
LookSmart - http://www.looksmart.com -
Pay Per Click Overture - http://www.overture.com - Pay Per Click

4. Check to make sure you are listed. After about a month, you want to go back and make sure that your site is listed in the appropriate search engine. The way to do this is to go to the search engine and type in your domain name. You don't have to include the http://www to do this.
If you are not listed, then go to the next step.

5. Resubmit if Necessary. If your site is not in the search engine you have selected to search, then resubmit your information for inclusion. It's important to remember that unless you are using paid inclusions, it is up to the discretion of the search engine whether or not your site is listed.

Your chances of success will increase if you include some quality content on your site that is dense in your key words. You also want to have as many quality links as possible. You can build your links by contacting other webmasters who have sites that complement yours.

6. Reevaluate. If your search engine strategy isn't working, it's time for a change. However, you need to consider that submitting to the search engines is a very long term strategy, and it isn't something that will occur over night. Only if you are using pay per clicks can you see an increase in traffic almost immediately.
For your free inclusions, you just want to make sure that you are included. Quality content and quality links can help here in raising your rankings.

For paid inclusions, you want to make sure that you are getting the click thrus you need. Unlike free inclusions, you should see results immediately. If you aren't getting enough traffic, consider changing your key words. Good Keywords will help you here.

7. Stay Informed.
If you want to continue to use this strategy in your business, then you need to stay abreast of industry happenings because things change so quickly.
The best place to get information on this constantly changing industry is here:
http://searchenginewatch.com/
They offer three different newsletters to cover the industry. At a minimum you should be reading the daily newsletter.

Although it is only one of the many strategies I use to promote my business, it can be very effective when done correctly. Take your time, be patient, and learn what you need to do before you use this strategy. It will become an effective tool in your marketing arsenal.

Jinger Jarrett is a former newspaper reporter and military journalist who currently spends her time writing, marketing, and consulting. You can get her free ebook/ecourse, "How to REALLY Start Your Business in 30 Days" free here: http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com
jingerjarrett@smallbusinesshowto.com

March Cookbook Site Newsletter

2008-03-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

I just published my second newsletter for my cookbook site: http://abridescookbook.com This one has a Spring/Easter theme.

To see it, click on link below and then on Easter, A Time for Celebration

View our Archive

7 Reasons Why Customers Don't Buy

2008-03-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

You've got a great product (or service). You've sent out fliers and brochures, networked with your local Chamber of Commerce and secured a great spot in the new Yellow Pages. No one's buying. What's wrong? There are many reasons why customers may not be flocking to your store (or web site). Here are seven fundamental ones to consider.

1. Inconvenience

In today's age of fast food and high-speed internet connections, people want instant gratification. If your sales process is not hassle-free, many customers will go elsewhere.

a) Do you offer multiple payment options?
b) If you have a website, is it easy to navigate? Do the pages load quickly? Studies indicate web visitors will move on if they don't find what they are looking for in the first 20 seconds. Similarly, is your physical storefront easy to find?
c) Do you provide adequate customer service? Can your customers reach a sales representative when they need one? Do you provide enough product information for your customers to make intelligent decisions?
d) Are your hours convenient for your customer?

2. Customer Doesn't Need or Want What You're Selling

Your customer may feel like he or she doesn't need or want your product. Your job as a salesperson is to convince them otherwise. Rather than focusing on a product's features, show your customer the benefits - your product will save them time, will save them money, will make their home more comfortable, etc. Paint them a picture with words like "imagine" and "wouldn't it be nice if..." Encourage them to visualize the benefits: "How do you feel this product would help you?"

3. Customer Doesn't Understand What You're Selling

If your product or service is relatively new, you may have to sell the concept before you can sell the item. Take virtual assistant services, for example. Two years ago, no one had ever heard of a virtual assistant, much less knew what one did. Through a number of trade organizations, though, the word has gotten out and the public has been educated. Now, virtual assistance is the 7th fastest growing industry in America, according to a Mitsubishi Research Institute study (Sep, 2000). People once had no idea that they could find remote, independent contractors to assist them with their businesses; now that they are aware of the benefits; they are actively searching for virtual assistants.

4. Customer Doesn't Trust You

A good customer relationship can, in many cases, overcome some of these other selling obstacles. Do your customers trust you? Do they feel they know you well enough to do business with you? Consider these questions:
a) Do you follow through on promises (e.g., delivery dates, technical support, warranties and returns)?
b) Are you viewed as an expert in your field? If not, try writing articles for publication, or presenting workshops. Join online discussion groups and offer advice in your area of expertise.
c) If you have a web presence, does your site list a physical address, or a P.O. box? (Physical addresses generate more trust.)
d) Are you active (and therefore visible) in the community?
e) Are online purchases conducted over a secure server? Is this evident to the customer?
f) Does your website have an adequate privacy policy?
g) Do you have a money-back guarantee?

5. Perceived Poor Quality

When it comes to selling (as with most of life), perception is reality. If a customer believes your product is inferior, it might as well be. Turn that perception around! Demonstrate your product so your customer can see it with his own eyes. Provide samples that they can touch, hear, see.

6. Perceived Poor Value

Are your competitors "giving it away?" If so, stress to your customers why they should pay for your product. What are you offering that your competitor isn't? Customer service? Warranties? Quality? Technical support?

7. Failing to Ask For the Sale

Don't assume that just because you've covered 1-6, that the sale is yours. Remember to ask for it! Do your marketing materials contain a clear call to action? Example: "Call now to reserve yours!" or "Order today!"

No, following all of these suggestions won't close every sale, but knowing why some sales fall through may help you get a jump on the competition. Good luck!

This article was written by Kelly Cullison from Birmingham, AL. She is a virtual assistant and founder of Atlas Virtual Services. Atlas provides a wide range of administrative support for small businesses so entrepreneurs can focus on the core functions of running their businesses. Visit Atlas at http://www.atlasvs.com/ or email Kelly@atlasvs.com

20 Simple Things To Do Today To Dramatically Increase Your Website Sales Part 2

2008-03-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

This is the second half of Willie Crawford's article:

Day759
11. Consider offering the option to phone-in orders. If your volume and profit margin justifies it, maybe you want to use a full-time employee or answering service to take orders over the phone. Many customers are uneasy about entering their credit card information into a webpage but don't hesitate to give it over the phone. Hearing a voice on the phone is reassuring. If your merchant account agreement allows this and you're equipped to key in orders don't discount this option too quickly.

12. Consider offering the option to fax in orders. If you don't want to have a full-time order taker sitting around, this may be a good option. This also gives you a hard copy of the order, along with a signature, which some credit card processors require.

13. Consider offering the option to mail in orders. This is another option you should not overlook. Some customers will not have credit cards but may want to order using a money order or check. I get a steady flow of mail orders, and the joy of opening letters containing orders never seems to go away.

14. Re-examine your price. Sales often increase dramatically when you make minor price changes. Perhaps raising your price will imply a higher quality to your prospects and therefore increase sales. Maybe lowering yourprice slightly will increase sales revenue by more than the decrease in per-unit profit. This is a point that it generally makes business sense to test.

15. Stop offering so many freebies! Ask yourself if you want customers with money to spend or those who aren't willing to pay for quality products and services. If you want to attract primarily "freebie seekers" then you need to have a system for eventually converting them into some type of revenue stream. You must pre-qualify your prospect even when giving them something for nothing to confirm you are reaching the ideal customer.

16. Make sure your promotions are really targeted. Begin by writing our a description of your ideal target customers. This ties in with number 15 somewhat. You may even go as far as stating in your ad the type of prospect you don't want. Many marketers of high-end items do this. It saves a lot of resources and allows them to focus on prospects who want what they offer, can afford what they offer, and are willing to purchase what they offer. Factor this philosophy into your marketing plan.

17. Have a trusted advisor review your web copy and/or ad copy for credibility/believability. This advisor should be familiar with copy writing and with your industry. You should seek honest unbiased feedback. We often overlook obvious flaws. It's a common practice to ask for site reviews on discussion forums. The drawback to that is that you may get opinions from those who aren't qualified to offer good advice.

18. Make sure you have a call to action. Your website or sales letter should stir your prospect into a buying frenzy. It should also tell them exactly how to order. It should tell them to click the link or pick up the phone or print out and mail in the order form. Many people must be given specific instructions before they take action. Tell them to do it now.

19. Review your guarantee. You should only market products that are of sufficient quality that your buyers are unlikely to be dissatisfied. Therefore you should offer a very strong guarantee. Guarantees which have a lot of conditions or reservations only build doubt in the prospect mind. "No questions asked, 100% money-back guarantees" generate substantially more sales and do not increase returns. Longer guarantees also tend to reduce returns since the customer does not feel an urgency to decide if he's satisfiedwith the product.

20. Make sure your ezine and website tie together and work synergistically. An ezine that reminds prospect to revisit your website and tell them about new products or features tend to increase sales. Websites that encourage ezine subscriptions give you a tool for staying in touch with visitors who would otherwise never return to your site.

Willie Crawford Not Only *Shows* You How To Make Your LivingOnline, He'll Also *PAY* for the Resources Needed to Do it!Click Here for the "All-In-One Internet Marketing Solution":http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?all-in-one

20 Simple Things To Do Today To Dramatically Increase Your Website Sales

2008-03-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

Day757
Today I'm sharing with you half of an article by Willie Crawford http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?all-in-one It's a little long, so I'll post the first 10 today and the rest tomorrow:

Need to increase your website sales? There are major things you can do which often produce incredible results. Things like having your entire website professionally rewritten. However, there are many little things you can do which also generate increases in sales. Through a process of continuous testing and making continuous improvements you CAN increase sales! Combined, the results from making simple improvements can be more impressive than from making the major changes.

Today I'd like to offer (in no special order) 20 simple things you can do to improve your website sales .

1. Review your product lineup. Ask yourself what is selling and what isn't and honestly examine why. If a product simply isn't needed don't waste your time promoting it. If a product is producing very little revenue for you, find another product to promote. Devote your time and effort to products that are producing for you. Don't be too stubborn to admit that perhaps you chose the wrong product to promote in the firstplace.

2. Revamp your ezine's welcome message to reinforce the decision to subscribe and perhaps introduce one of your products. Don't turn the welcome message into a sales letter, but do start familiarizing your subscribers with your product lineup. To reinforce the decision to subscribe, perhaps give the new subscriber an unannounced gift (make sure it is ofreal value).

I also include a sample copy of my ezine with the welcome message. This really serves to confirm what the subscriber will be getting each issue and if it's not what he expected, he should unsubscribe. You do want targeted subscribers and you don't want list members who don't want to receive your material.

3. Review your ezine's unsubscribe message. Since you WILL get unsubscribes, make the confirmation message a positive experience. Perhaps provide another bonus, some useful tips, or tell them about a special you are running. This may be your last contact with this subscriber so use it wisely (without annoying the person).

4. Follow up purchases with an unexpected gift. Your customers are so use to having lots of sometimes useless bonuses promised to them that it is a pleasant surprise when they get an unexpected bonus that is really useful to them. Several well-know mentors of mine use this "under-promise and over-deliver" model. It dramatically reduces "buyer remorse" and reinforces the decision to buy your product. Using this technique you are well on your way to building lots of repeat sales. Satisfied repeat customers often make many large purchases :-)

5. Review your order handling process - from the web copy through to the delivery of the product. Place an order and have others place orders to evaluate the experience. Look for points in the sequence where a prospect might be turned off. Is there something about any page in the sequence that might generate doubt or negative feelings in the prospects mind? A significant number of customers abandon orders at the order form or during the checkout process.

Examine yours closely to reduce this happening on your website. Make sure your order process steps the customer through step-by-step while providing continuous reassurance.

6. Join image-enhancing organizations such as the BetterBusiness Bureau or the International Council Of Online Professionals. To be accepted as a member of either organization requires that you ascribe to certain professional and ethical standards. You must also maintain a very high level of professional business standards to remain a member of either organization. Your potential customers will be reassured when they see that you conduct your business at this level of professionalism. Membership in such organizations pay for themselves many times over.

7. Look for broken links on your site. Having webpages load with broken images or having a visitor get a lot of file not found messages can create a negative impression. Your weblogs should reveal "file not found" hits. Fix these to improve sales. Also, periodically surf your site to confirm everything on your page functions as you intended. This is a good chore to get one of the kids to do :-) There are also software programs and services which check for broken links. Use these!

8. Focus on fewer products. If you try to promote too many products and "spread yourself too thin" you will generally do a poor job. Instead really get to know all of the features of your products and also get to know all of the promotional tools available for that product. If you are marketing affiliate products, there should be lots of tools for you to use in your promotions. Test a variety of these tools and stick with the winners. It's much easier to rave about and market a product that you know inside-out.

9. Include inserts with physically delivered products. If you have any products which are actually mailed to your customers such as hard copy books, cassettes, etc. make sure that you include a brochure or flyers for other products in the package. These customers are your best prospects for repeat sales. When they open a package they've been waiting for, and are thrilled with the product, they are instantly in a receptive buying mood. As an example, I sell cookbooks from one of my websites. I offer both ebooks and hard copy. With each hard copy shipped I include a flyer encouraging purchasers to consider giving copies of this book as a gift.I also encourage purchasers of the books to order copies of video cassettes demonstrating many of the dishes. It works like magic.

10. When you get new subscribers or customers make sure your "thank you page" offers them a path to continue experiencing your site. Perhaps you offer them some other special report, tell them about a product you really love, offer to up-sell them, or offer free access to a customer-only section of your website. Suggest where the customer should go next -instead of just leaving them "hanging."

Recession: Recess from Spending

2008-02-29T08:14:00.000-08:00

Day753
Recession can be a much needed recess from spending. Just about everyone spends more then we should. Maybe a recession is just what we need to cut back to essentials. Less waste, less to take care of - it could really be good for us!

Let givitup help you point out the bright side with our Recess from Spending t-shirts, stickers and gifts.

http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/4943768

New Fun Gifts for Computer Geeks

2008-02-19T18:14:00.000-08:00

What computer geek hasn't thought this? byte me: on t-shirts, buttons, magnets, mouse pads and mugs - you don't even have to say anything!
givitup

If it’s Not One Thing it’s 6 Others!

2008-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Day740
I grew up hearing my mom say that all the time. “If it’s not one thing, it’s 6 others!” And boy is that true when you work on the internet.

Just like when you look up information online and keep linking to more and more information (and often get totally off subject), owning an online store leads you in to: joining forums, (so you can get help from other shopkeepers or marketing people, or promote your store) social websites, (I’ve joined My Space, Facebook, Kappa Delta, My Church and Friendster) online classes, (about web design, freelance writing, copywriting, marketing and affiliate marketing) signing up for ezines and newsletters, (hoping to become better educated or get that one brilliant idea!) advertising, writing articles, press releases and blogs.

There truly seems to be no end in site. It is a web indeed!

16 Ways to Lure Traffic to Your Web Site

2008-02-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here's an article I think is helpful by Marcia Yudkin of Creative Marketing Solutions
http://www.yudkin.com/index.htm

Building a web site and not promoting it is like posting a billboard in your basement. You're just not going to get a lot of traffic. To get your web site visited and appreciated, you need to let people know it exists. If your web site is lonely for visitors, try these often-overlooked ideas.

1. Use web address stickers. Not ready yet to reprint your stationery? Print small, coordinating labels that feature your online address and copy inviting people to visit. Stick them on outgoing envelopes, on seminar folders, on the backs of your business cards and more.

2. Put your URL in print ads. This extends the efficacy of a small print ad, since wired readers can get more details about your offerings instantly, 24 hours a day. But include your phone number and street address as well.

3. Include your URL in answering machine or voice-mail messages. For those who call your office outside of office hours, why not spell out your Web address in your message, so that they can immediately help themselves to the information they need?

4. Utilize your on-hold message as well. Similarly, instead of playing "Rhapsody in Blue" for customers while they wait on the line for a representative, you can tell them that if they're calling for directions, prices, return policies and such, they can click on over to your web site.

5. Post notices of your site's content on discussion boards. Whenever you add useful non-promotional content to your web site, such as a topical "Frequently Asked Questions" page, post notices to relevant newsgroups, forums, discussion boards and mailing lists. This usually not only increases traffic at your web site, but also prompts people to add links to your site.

6. Ask for links. Visit non-competing informational sites in your area of expertise and ask the owners to add links to your site. This works best when your site includes useful informational resources rather than strictly promotional material.

7. Exchange links. Before requesting links, add a section to your site that contains links to related businesses. Then contact the webmasters of those sites to request a return link. You'll find your initiative frequently reciprocated.

8. Start an email newsletter. Some say that showing up in your customers' mailboxes every week or month with updates, schedules, sale prices or industry news is even more valuable than the web site itself. Somewhere in the newsletter, tell readers to check out your web site for more information on related subjects.

9. Publicize your content. Add something to your site no one else in your industry has, then send a news release to industry trade magazines about your unique feature -, a top-ten list, a Scuba Diver's Joke of the Week.

10. Host a giveaway. Announce a drawing for a free something-or-other once a month. Those who sign the guest book during that period - and people can re-register every month - are eligible to win.

11. Create outdoor signage. Facing Route 128 in Massachusetts recently was this sign on a very traditional-looking restaurant: "pillarhouse.com." It let technically savvy commuters know they could make reservations and explore the menu through their computer.

12. Invent alternate domain names. If you started off as "pamsparties.com" and then discover that "balloons.com" is available, grab it and have it open up your same site. That's what Coca-Cola did when it registered for both www.cocacola.com and www.coke.com. The shorter and more memorable your domain names, the better.

13. Encourage people to bookmark your site. Obedient creatures that we humans are, making an explicit bookmark request either at the site or in advertising containing your URL increases the chances people file your address in their browser for a return visit.

14. Append a signature file. At the end of every e-mail message you send, append a file containing your contact information and a line about what's new at your web site. Change the "what's new" line frequently to tempt previous visitors to have another look.

15. Offer free classifieds. A Yahoo! search turned up thousands of sites offering free classified ads, some regional and others topic-specific - for bicycle stuff, crafts, computers and more. Post ads for products or services related to your business.

16. Print T-shirts. Order custom-made shirts and wear your web address on your back. For even more visibility with this method, sponsor a softball team who will wear them, or use them as giveaways for a promotional mailing.

Oh! And I just happen to know where you can get those t-shirts printed!Send your URL or logo to http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/1364950

Newsletter about My New Cookbook Site

2008-02-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

Day731
I wrote my first newsletter to promote my new Cookbook Site. I was so excited by how it looked – just like the site. And we put in lots of text links that took the readers to the site, I wrote a fun article on making a romantic dinner for Valentine’s Day and included a great chocolate dessert recipe. Used Constant Contact to send it…and then I got my copy and noticed 2 typos!! I was devastated!!

They were both in the first paragraph/greeting that my husband added. So I’ll blame him!

To see it, click on link below and then on Valentine's Day 2008:

View our Archive

We’ve Launched a Cookbook Site around A Bride’s Cookbook!

2008-02-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

Day726
Once my cookbook, ‘A Bride’s Cookbook or Surviving the First Year’ was done and both in my store in the print version and online in an electronic version, my husband and I started on the second part of our plan: building a Cooking Website around the cookbook.

It has been a lot of work, just like everything else I’ve done online! People who say making money online is a cinch are fooling you, I think. But, it is a real learning experience! And very interesting. We want whatever we put out there to really matter, so we work very hard at it. Researching, picking only things we believe in and feel good about to promote, trying to offer good information that’s helpful to other people.

Now that the site is live I have to do press releases for it and then it will be time to start tweaking it and updating content!

Here it is: http://abridescookbook.com

Election 2008 Merchandise Just in Time for Super Tuesday

2008-01-30T17:21:00.000-08:00

Day723
I just added an Election 2008 section to my store and I’ve been writing online press releases for it. Here’s one:

The political race toward the White House has gotten more narrow, but much more heated lately. With Super Tuesday right around the corner, Republicans and Democrats are working hard to get their man’s (or woman’s) name out there.

givitup, a print on demand store with over 100 products, has just opened an Election 2008 section. Nancy Geiger, owner of the store, has chosen who she considers to be the top 4 contenders. givitup has only been open a little over 2 years so this is it’s first opportunity to get political.

Geiger says t-shirts have always been a way for people to “belong” and “stand out.” The first written t-shirts were usually sports names. Then of course there are the school names and place names, all giving people a feeling of belonging to a group. Later came the “statements” which set them a part. Their view of the world or opinion about something. The hip joke that made them cool. The rebellion against the establishment.

People advertise their businesses or put their kid’s pictures (or their dogs!) on t-shirts. With politics, they are essentially walking billboards for the candidate of their choice.

Geiger says the beauty of print on demand is that the customer can get one item and not have to order in bulk. They can also send her their own text, picture or design to make an even more personal statement.

“With candidates throwing their hats in after the race has started and others dropping out mid-stream, print on demand allows me change my shop with the news and not lose inventory.” Geiger said, “It’s a wonderful system. And fun! Besides the usual stickers, buttons, magnets and t-shirts, I’m able to have mugs, bibs, onesies, BBQ aprons, note cards, baseball caps and even teddy bears wearing t-shirts.”

givitup’s Election 2008 merchandise can be viewed at http://www.givitup.com/

Internet Marketing Dictionary

2008-01-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

Day719
I found a helpful site for those just starting to learn about Internet marketing. It’s an online dictionary of all the terms related to this fairly new field.

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

Mining For Gold...In Your Web Traffic Logs

2008-01-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

Day717
Understanding your Web site’s traffic patterns is a crucial component of your marketing mix. The information in these logs is collected as visitors find and move around your site at their own volition. So, it’s “market research that cannot lie” - and therefore provides unprecedented insights that can help you to strategize not only for the future development of the site itself, but also for your overall business and marketing plan.

I’ll describe the most important sections of the log report when analyzing your site’s marketing effectiveness. Often, deciding what’s right and what’s a problem is a gut feel that you’ll develop by looking at your log reports over a period of weeks or months, by trying some new tactics, and observing the trends and results.

General Statistics

This introductory section shows the overall traffic to the site, including the number of actual visitors, as opposed to “hits”. This is an important distinction - one hit is generated for every page and every individual image that a visitor requests (e.g. a page with some text and five pictures will take six hits to download). So, the ratio of hits to individual visitors can be quite high.

By the way, it’s also important for you to appreciate this distinction if you are selling advertising space on your site. You may be asked by a potential advertiser to prove your traffic levels, and if you happily say “millions of hits”, they may look suspicious!

This section also shows the average time spent on the site, which should give some indication as to how engaging it is. If your site is rich in content, but the time spent on it is relatively low, it may not be meeting the needs of the visitors it is attracting, or it may be targeted at the wrong audience.

I had a client who earlier this year placed #1 in some major search engines. He was ecstatic! But his site had not been worked on for some time, and was very dry and boring. We discovered from his logs that the average time spent on his site was less than two minutes - obviously indicating a problem. And to make my point again, without this evidence from the logs, he would have continued to believe that his site was successful.

Most and Least Requested Pages

The most requested pages are a great barometer of the “hot” areas of your site, and thus the most popular aspects of your online products or services. These may be different from your original expectations, and so this information can be very valuable for overall business development decisions.

If the least requested pages (i.e. the ones that attract the fewest visitors) contain important content, then something’s wrong. Usually, it’s either that their content is not interesting to your markets after all, or that the site is not driving your traffic to these pages in ways that are attractive.

Top Entry and Exit Pages

If the inside pages of your site are well promoted in the search engines, there should be a number of top entry pages (i.e. the first page that the visitor sees), in addition to the home page. This is a good reminder to include clear navigation back to other areas of the site from every page, to ensure that the first-time visitor gets a complete picture of your offerings.

The top exit pages are also an indication of your site’s effectiveness - if these are not the right places for most visitors to leave from, some adjustments are needed. Make sure that every page of your site has an objective, and that you clearly direct the visitor to the next page or to the action that you wish them to take.

Single Access Pages

These are pages that a visitor views, and leaves without exploring any further. Typically, this will be the home page, and I am often asked whether this is an issue. I usually give the standard consultant’s answer: “It depends . . .”
Your home page should quickly show the different audiences for your site that they’ve come to the right place for what they want, and where to go to find it. So you might have sections for members, prospective members, journalists, consumers, etc. The home page should do enough to engage them, and send them on to the appropriate inside pages.

If the home page does a good job of this, there will probably be some visitors who came to your site by mistake, in which case they will leave immediately. But that’s OK - they aren’t the right traffic for you.

It’s really your judgment call as to what constitutes a problem. But, that client I mentioned earlier whose visitors spent less than two minutes on his site also had about 85% single access figures on his home page - some things are obvious!

A splash entry page to your site (i.e. one that says “Welcome, enter here”, but with little or no actual content) will often also show large single access figures. Although these pages can look very striking, they unfortunately tend to be unpopular with impatient surfers. I’ve seen splash pages that have lost one third of a site’s visitors. If you have a splash page, check the single access figures for it in your logs, and be prepared to remove it without hurting the feelings of your Webmaster!

Most Active Countries and Cities

If your site is aimed at an international audience, this section will show which country visitors originate from. This information can be useful in making decisions such as providing pages in languages other than English.

The most active cities report is unfortunately very misleading, as it relies on the registered location of the Internet Service Provider. Most log reports therefore show very disproportionate visitor numbers from Virginia - the home of America Online!

Top Referring Sites / URL’s / Search Engines

These are the Web pages that send visitors to your site. The largest figure here will usually be the “No referrer”, showing people coming directly to the site. This means that they are typing in your URL, or have your site bookmarked, and implies that your other forms of marketing are working.

The log reporting program should display other Web pages that send you traffic as html links, allowing you to click on the URL (when online!) to see the originating page. This will show the effectiveness of your reciprocal links or paid advertising. You will also be able to see other sites that are linking to you. It’s worth checking these out if you aren’t familiar with them - either to thank them, or to check that their link to you is appropriate.

For search engine referrals, clicking on the link will resubmit the search, and allow you to evaluate competitors’ sites and positioning relative to yours. It’s also possible to review keywords that are bringing traffic from one particular source, and to try to improve the site’s performance for those words in other search engines.

Top Search Keywords and Phrases

This is crucial information, as it shows exactly what people were looking for when they came to your site. Often Web site marketers take their best guess at these keywords on their first design, but because the search engines index every word on all your pages, other terms can be found, especially in a content rich site.

So the most popular search phrases can tell you what’s really “hot” in your products and services. Understanding these is another great key to understanding the current needs of your site’s market(s), and making business strategy and development decisions. One of my clients recently decided to write a book on a topic area that, until she saw her logs, she had no idea was so sought-after.

Conclusion

There are other sections in the log report, especially around the technical data for your site. The pieces that I have covered here are the significant ones for marketers. If you don’t have this information available, I really urge you to get it, and review it - I guarantee that you’ll find some gold nuggets!

Byline
Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy consultant and professional speaker. Check out her free tipsheet for 23 ideas to promote your Website "Beyond the Search Engines": http:/ /www.CyberSpeaker.com/tipsheet.html Philippa can be reached at (831) 325-3307 or mailto:pgamse@Cyb erSpeaker.com

Identity Theft T-shirts and Gifts

2008-01-23T18:31:00.000-08:00

Day716
I added a new section to my store today and I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way! There are times when you just wish someone would take your identity and you could start over! My life? Take it and all the problems too!

givitup

Google Adsense

2008-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Day710
Google Adsense has made a huge impact on internet advertising and it is not short of being a revolution. The fact that more and more people are using Adsense today is the proof of its success. It is a concept that can provide businesses, small and large with a good ROI and generate targeted traffic by creating a high visibility over the internet.

You should start applying Adsense if you have been losing money instead of gaining in any kind of affiliate programs. Google through its Adsense service is providing high quality and relevant ads, which match up to the content on your website. To add to this is the search engine, which will take care of most of the searching. Another salient point is that you will not have to spend too much time choosing various types of ads for your website pages. Google's Adsense process makes it easy for you because it doesn't involve codes, as is the case for several affiliate programs.

Adsense Tips

AdSense is something on the lines of a set and forget arrangement thanks to the state-of-the-art technology used by Google. Here are some strategic tips of what to do with Google Adsense and what not to do with it.

1. While working on Adsense, you should try and avoid default settings, instead work towards customizing your ads.

2. When you are writing the content, think about your reader and then target your content through Adsense.

3. One mistake that most businesses or people make is looking at AdSense as a competitor; instead you should look at it as a partner that is going to help generate revenue for your business and create visibility over the internet, and in fact provide you with a winning edge over your actual competitors.

4. You need to position the ads correctly. This is highly important if you want to profit you're your Adsense campaign. You need to place your ads where you feel there is a higher probability for people to see it.

5. With Google, you can place three instances of AdSense code per page. You should use this to your advantage but remember you need to also bring a variety to the implementation.

6. If you have implemented the code on your Adsense ads then refrain from clicking on the ad. Note: Google is extremely sensitive to click fraud.

7. One of the things that many people try is game the system. Google is aware of most of the things or tricks that people apply and is notorious for pursuing people caught doing a click fraud.

Here is a list of Don'ts:

1. Don't try to implement your AdSense code in a place where people won't be able to see it.

2. There are many people who try to offer incentive to visitors so that they click on the AdSense ads. This is a no-no!

3. Never ask people to click on your ad

4. Never place your AdSense ads on empty pages.

Making money from the Rates

The Google Adsense ads can be easily customized, which is one of the reasons for its popularity. They can also be placed anywhere on your web page but it is always advisable to place them where people will be able to see them and click on them. You can always experiment a little with themes, colors and of course the placement but you should never go overboard. Too much of experimentation can kill the main purpose. But before you can start with Google Adsense, you need to be aware of the rates, which can vary. Your Adsense strategy should revolve ideally around the rates because you will receive your payments per click and it will all depend on how much people are willing to pay per click to place an advertisement using AdWords. The minimum that advertisers pay is around 5 cents and it can go to as much as $10, and even more. For example: lawyers are paying around $75 for using the keyword mesothelioma.

You can sign up for your Adsense account by clicking on the URL below: https://www.google.com/adsense/

About the Author: Learn more about making money online at: http://www.affhelper.com/make-money-online.html Also, check out these work at home reviews before you join any income opportunity: http://www.onlinescamsuncovered.com

List of social networking websites

2008-01-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

Day707
Everyone knows that social networking is huge, but who knew there were so many of them! Wikipedia has a great list with links to each site and how many members.

Check it out! Social Networking List

How to Write Little Tiny AdWords That Bring Giant-Sized Profits

2008-01-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

Day702
When you own an online store, you will not only write descriptions and copy, but lots of ads. This article tells how to write AdWords, but the principle applies to anything you write about your products.

It seems to be a phenomenon. You try AdWords, your ad gets “disapproved” by the powers that be at Google, you count your losses and give up. It doesn’t have to be that way. There are two primary factors to succeeding at Google AdWords and other types of PPC advertising. The first is getting the right keywords. The second is writing little tiny ads. That's what we'll cover in this article.

Mark Twain said it best. “If I would have had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” The point… it takes much more skill, and much more time to write short copy than long copy.

Let’s go through the process together and I’ll show you a few tricks of the trade that have brought me AdWords click through rates of 7.1%, 8.0%… even 25%.Step One – You would be very wise to either use a benefit or an end result in your headline. In order to do this, you’ll have to be aware of the difference between features and benefits. Start by making a list. I’ll use the example of an online shoe store.

Here are a few features:
· huge inventory
· wide selection of sizes
· discounted prices
· free shipping

And here are the benefits associated with those features:
· hundreds of styles to choose from
· hard-to-find sizes in stock
· save money
· free shipping (costs nothing extra)

Step Two – Know what your customers are looking for. YOU may feel that one benefit outweighs another. However, your customer might feel differently. Be sure you understand what is important to your customer before writing your headline and your ad. You have no room to waste so it is vital that you find a so-called nail and hit it right on the head.

Step Three – Work in your keywords. There tends to be a greater click through rate on search results that use the exact key phrase the surfer types in. The same holds true for Google’s AdWords program.

While the following have by no means been researched, we’ll assume that some optimum keywords for our shoe store are: women's shoes and sandals. We’ll want to include these in our ads.

Step Four – Start big and narrow it down. Begin by writing a few sentences or a paragraph about what you’d like your customer to know. Perhaps:

You’ll find everything you’re looking for in one place! Hundreds of styles to choose from including hard-to-find sizes in stock. You’ll save lots of money because our regular prices are far below that of other stores. Plus shipping is always free – regardless of the amount of your purchase. Check out our excellent selection of women's shoes and sandals.

Now, go back and take out every word that does not absolutely need to be there. You probably came up with something like this:

Everything in one place! Hundreds of styles, hard-to-find sizes. Prices far below other stores. Shipping free. Women's shoes and sandals.

That’s a LOT smaller and still gets the point across. However, it is still too long for AdWords. Your headline must be less than 25 characters (including spaces). Your copy can only be 35 characters per line. (You get two lines.) Now is the time to begin rearranging words to create an ad that will match Google’s guidelines, include your keywords, and draw a crowd to your site.

Here are a couple I came up with:

100s of Styles-Low Prices
Big savings on women's shoes. Plusfree shipping! All sizes in stock.

Discount Women's Sandals
Latest styles at deep discounts. All sizes in stock. Free Shipping!

Step Five – Test, test, test! Put them up and give them a go. See what happens. Believe me, Google will notify you quickly if your ads aren’t performing. Those that get lower than a .05% click through rate are immediately “disapproved.” You are notified that your ad has been pulled and that you need to make changes.

Use the information in the AdWords campaign section to track the results. I’ve heard countless tales of those who have changed one little word and gone from a .07% CTR to a 5.0% CTR. If your ad is pulled, make simple changes to start with. Swapping out the word “savings” for “discount” or “big” for “huge” can be all it takes to catapult you to the top of the list.

When you write extremely short copy, remember to stay focused. There is not enough room to sell the customer within your copy, but there IS enough room to pique their interests. Use the limited space you have to punch up the biggest benefits or end results your customers are looking for and you’ll see bigger returns on your AdWords investment.

About the Author: Discover the proven methods for writing powerful PPC ads with Karon's latest ebook How To Write Successful PPC Ads. This quick-read has easy, tested ways to create PPC ads fast that get higher click-through rates. Learn PPC copywriting today at http://www.writeppcads.com/. © 2004

Sales From Your Site - Make It Simple For Prospects

2008-01-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Day699
Building a web site often can lead to interesting deviations caused by practicalities and changes in perspective. This is okay so long as you keep things simple for prospects.

Many business owners unintentionally erect barriers between themselves and their customers when it comes to the site sales process. Simple mechanisms can be put in place to remove these barriers.

A business owner that is always looking for new ways to connect with potential customers often finds his or her efforts paying off many times over. Some of the most common web sales barriers are lack of contact methods, payment methods, and delivery methods. To bridge these potential barriers, a business owner can provide more options to crossing each of these barriers.

Contact Barriers

Simply adding contact options can be a great way to create more sales. Some web sites only offer email or even just a contact form as a means of contact. Yet there are many people that prefer to conduct transactions over the phone, by mail or by fax. Retail sites discover this fact the first time they go through a hot sales period such as Christmas. Some people just like to call. No, I don’t know why. They just do.

Providing a broad range of contact options also builds credibility. Having an office address, fax and phone number in addition to an email address shows the prospective client that the business does in fact exist and has made themselves transparent and easy to contact. Providing such information gives people the impression they aren’t dealing with some Nigerian scam.

Using an 800 number is also an excellent way to build credibility and remove a sales barrier. Picking up the tab on calls from potential clients is a polite gesture and may encourage a potential buyer one more reason to call. Toll-free numbers are easy to obtain these days and can cost around 6 cents per minute - a small price to pay for building confidence in your audience.

Payment Barriers

Many web sites provide only one way to pay for merchandise - credit card. There are many reasons to offer more payment methods. For one, not everyone has a credit card. Although in the United States, it seems like almost everyone does, this is not true in over-seas markets where there is resistance to credit. Furthermore, some people just don't feel safe providing credit card information over the web. Regardless of how safe or unsafe Internet transactions may or may not be, it is usually the job of the business owner to provide what the consumer wants.

It is a simple matter to provide an address and a printable order form for most web sites where a check can be mailed. If you are running a home business, a PO box is a simple solution to keep your business separate from your home. Some mailbox services allow for your address to be a suite number instead of a box number, which can further improve the image of your business.

Providing a phone number by which orders can be placed is also a way to remove a barrier between you and your potential customers. Of course this means there must also be someone there to answer the phone. Simply answering the phone can be the difference between a sale and a lost sale.

Delivery Methods

For businesses providing products, providing a variety of delivery methods is yet another way to cater to the desires of your customers and potential customers. Many people have a preference for delivery and meeting this preference could be a deciding factor when deciding whether or not to place an order. For those businesses providing services, providing a delivery pickup service for a deposit and/or contract can be a perfect sale closer.

Conclusion

By removing barriers between you and your potential customers you can increase the chances of making sales. Other options are also available, like instant messaging support, mapped out directions, video conferencing and more. Be careful to not confuse your audience with too many options. It is often a good idea to direct your audience to default options for contact, payment and delivery so as not to confuse people. Other options can be shown as small links or drop down options. By working to connect more with your audience, your sales and customer satisfaction can be increased dramatically.

Author Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com/

Learn to Improve Sales - 10 Ways to Get More Business Starting Today

2008-01-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Day698
You need sales and you wanted them yesterday. Here are ten ideas to start those sales pouring in. Learn them then use them.

Brand your name and business. This is the most important thing you can do for your business. You can easily do this by just writing articles and submitting them to e-zines, web sites, press-release sites, local newspapers for publishing or republishing. Including your picture where possible is powerful.

Find a strategic business partner/s. Look for ones that have the same objective. You can trade leads, share marketing info, sell package deals, and more. This works online as well as offline.

Take notice of successful business or people that directly compete with you. Study the aspects that make them successful then model your business after them. I'm not saying out right copy them, but practice some of the same habits that have made them succeed.

Take a little time out of your day or week to brainstorm. New ideas are usually the difference between success and failure.

Take risks to improve your business. Sometimes businesses don't want to advertise unless it's free. Usually you have to spend money to get results.

Include emotional words in your advertisements. Use words like love, security, relief, freedom, happy, satisfaction, fun, discover, etc for powerful hypnotic effect.

Ask people to review your web site. You can use the comments you get to improve your web site or you may turn the reviewer into a customer.

Combine a product and service together in a package deal. It could increase your sales. If you're selling a book, offer an hour of consulting with it.

Offer a product on the back-end. After product is sold suggest a complimentary product or products. Online this can be done on the thank you page. Offline it is used all the time… “Would you like fries with your meal?”

Start an auction on your web site. The type of auction could be related to the theme of your site. You'll draw traffic from auctioneers and bidders.

Ok, time to roll up the sleeves and put one or more of these strategies to work for you. They won’t start working for you unless you start working them first. Make it happen today.

The author of this article is Marie Gervacio, founder and editor of http://www.articleblender.com

Valentine Day Gifts for New Parents and Grandparents

2008-01-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

Day695
Whenever I put new designs on, I just want to keep going! So after finishing my Spring Break 2008 section, I went on to add a Valentine’s Day section, filled with baby and little kids clothing and gifts to give the new parents and/or grandparents.

http://www.givitup.com

Spring Break T-shirts and Merchandise

2008-01-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

Day696
Now that the holidays are over college kids are counting the days until Spring Break!
I’ve added my 2008 Spring Break merchandise so the students can have a mug, mousepad, clock, magnet, teddy bear, tote bag, t-shirt or hoodie to keep their minds focused on the fun to come!

http://www.givitup.com

Do You Make This Marketing Mistake?

2007-12-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

Day692
For the past several days I’ve been sharing articles that I’ve found online while trying to learn more about marketing, websites and ecommerce. This one made me look at my online store and ask myself how I can market my products in a new way.

In a recent piece in the Harvard Business Review, the authors remind us what a normal person wants when they buy something. And no, it is NOT the thing they buy. Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt, they write, used to tell his students,"People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" (Harvard Business Review, 12.05)

Think about your product. Are you selling its features, benefits, ingredients, or scientific validity? Or are you offering what someone might do or make happen with it? Like the drill - it's used to make a hole where there was none before. So when talking about your products, especially when you're talking to women, tell first how you used the products - what they did for you. Tell YOUR story (AKA Your First Date Script). Women (a big fat 80% majority of network marketers) always want to know FIRST how others are using the products you are offering - what they DO with it. Not what's in it. That's a big difference between how women and men buy. (Marketing to Women, Barletta).

So, what if you start with YOUR story? My company's introducing a product for women who... (...who want to get X done, like I did). Then you tell how YOU use the product and how it helped you do X. How it gave you the "quarter-inch hole" you wanted (AKA Your First Date Script). You end it by asking for someone like you - someone who wants to get the thing done that YOU got done.

Professor Levitt had the insight: Consumers, us, want to get things done. We all buy stuff (and hire people) to get those things done, including buying it just to be able to show it or talk about it with others. So, what 'got done' for you, by using your product? Next ask yourself: might there be others out there who'd like to know about a product that did that for you? And if the answer is yes, that is your market. Isn't it?

About the author: Kim Klaver is Harvard & Stanford educated. Her 20 years experience in network marketing have resulted in a popular blog, http://KimKlaverBlogs.com a podcast http://YourGreatThing.com and a giant resource site, http://BananaMarketing.com

How to Create a Money Magnet Web Site

2007-12-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

Day691
If you've been online for more than a day you've probably heard some "guru" somewhere recommend that you create a Money Magnet Web Site - a site that is highly automated and helps you make money 24 hours a day. While that might “sound” great, what they often forget to tell you is HOW to do that.

Well, I'm going to tell you right now, in this article!

First, what IS a Money Magnet Web Site? A Money Magnet Web Site can be defined as one that is equipped with an integrated suite of both e-commerce and internet marketing tools in a fashion that will allow you to be the most profitable with the least amount of effort.

Most e-commerce systems are equipped with the following essentials:
- A shopping cart.
- Acceptance and processing of credit cards.
- A maintenance system that allows you to add/change products.
- An order-retrieval system that enables you to fulfill orders.

However, what most of them are lacking are marketing tools. There are several marketing strategies that are essential in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site:
- Email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers
- Effective use of autoresponders (generate automatic email messages)
- Online Newsletter
- Online Form / Survey to capture your prospect's email address
- Electronic Product Delivery (if you sold a digital product)
- Advertisement (Ad) Tracking
- Back End Sales
- Affiliate program

Now, if you had a system that would support the integration of ALL of these marketing tools in addition to the necessary e-commerce essentials, then you would have a Money Magnet Web Site. After all, it has been shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before prospective customers actually make a purchase. Consider the following scenario: A prospect clicks on an advertisement in an online magazine. This action increments a counter for this particular ad to help you determine how well it's working. They don't decide to buy as of yet but join your newsletter. They are now considered a prospect. You begin to send them a monthly email newsletter. Additionally, an autoresponder kicks into thank them for joining the newsletter as well as scheduling them to get email twice a month for the next 90 days reiterating your product benefits and inviting them to purchase.

Upon sending them one of your "juicy" offers that they couldn't refuse, they finally purchase. They will automatically be removed from your prospect list and added to your customer list. Based on the particular product or service they've purchased, they will receive a series of emails every two weeks for the next 6 months offering complementary products.

This will be the engine that will drive your back end sales and keep your customers coming back to your web site. Being able to play out a scenario such as this using one integrated system would be pretty impressive don't you think? The internet big boys do this with expensive e-commerce platform suites produced by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. Having your system automatically perform these follow up tasks frees you up to spend more time on your business, your health or your family!

What can you do to obtain a money magnet web site? Fortunately, there are ways that you can automate your website in much the same way that the big boys do. The best and most cost-effective way would be to sign up with one of the handful of Application Service Providers available on the internet, which provide a shopping cart integrated with a full suite of marketing tools. Normally, the shopping cart and tools are very flexible and can be incorporated into any website. Are there any other ways to automate your business besides working with a total solution provider? You can accomplish some level of automation without an integrated shopping cart system, however, it will require manual intervention and of course it would be incomplete. I believe that the most important asset of your e-commerce business is your email lists.

Therefore, concentrate on the implementation of a good autoresponder/list server system to "enhance" your present e-commerce website. There are several good ones on the market. Look for providers that allow you to:
- Create multiple lists.
- Add prospects via a web form, email, or manually through a management console.
- Send out an unlimited number of autoresponder messages.
- Send out an unlimited number of email broadcasts.
- Set up and distribute a newsletter.

When setting up your autoresponder system, create one list for your "prospects" and another one for your "customers". Now, here's where you come in: when a person orders your product, you will have to perform the extra task of logging into your autoresponder system and manually remove them from the prospect list and add them to the customer list. This action will then trigger your customer autoresponder series of messages to be sent. Remember, the key to building a successful e-commerce web site is to automate your marketing engine as much as possible and will certainly create a money magnet e-commerce web site for you! To learn more about website automation and to download the complimentary ebook, "Easy Ezine Marketing", visit Izzy Camacho at http://www.internet-marketing-madeasy.com/MoneyMagnet.htm
He is an accomplished software developer with approximately 20 years of experience. He has a degree in computer science from a distinguished university. For the last several years he has been involved in the creation of web site applications for corporate America. Article Source: http://www.businesshighlight.org/

Why Don’t People Buy From You?

2007-12-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

Day687
1. You don't make people feel safe when they order. Remind people that they are ordering through a secure server. Tell them you won't sell their email address and that all their information will be kept confidential.

2. You don't make your ad copy attractive. Your ad lists features instead of benefits. The headline does not attract your target audience. You don't list any testimonials or "guarantees included" in your ad.

3. You don't remind people to come back and visit. People usually don't purchase the first time they visit. The more times they visit your site, the greater the chance they will buy. The most effective way is to give them a free subscription to your e-zine.

4. You don't let people know anything about your business. They will feel more comfortable if they know who they are buying from. Publish a section called "About Us" on your Web site. Include your business history, profile of employees, contact information, etc.

5. You don't give people as many ordering options as possible. Accept credit cards, checks, money orders, and other forms of electronic payments. Take orders by phone, email, Web site, fax, mail, etc.

6. You don't make your Web site look professional. You want to have your own domain name. Your Web site should be easy to navigate through. The graphics should be related to the theme of your Web site.

7. You don't let people read your ad before they get your freebie. When you use free stuff to lure people to your Web site, include it below your ad copy or on another Web page. If you list the freebie above your ad, they may never look to see what you're selling.

Author Larry Dotson. 1075 FREE Internet Marketing eBooks, Courses, And Web Books! FREE Content For Your eBook, Web Site Or E-zine! http://www.ldpublishing.com

More Internet Marketing Tips

2007-12-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

Successful Internet marketing is not just getting lucky. Instead, successful Internet marketing is about making a plan based on the tools that have already proven successful and working that plan until they prove successful for you as well. The following tips for Internet marketing should help you get started and be successful as well.

Internet Marketing Tip #1 Well Designed Site
A well designed site from the font to the colors used as well as the layout is critical for success. Once you get people to your website you want them to stay there and in order for this to happen your site needs to look professional, be user friendly, informative and have all the information easily accessible to visitors. If you cannot design a site yourself then hire someone to do it for you. This expense really is worthwhile because a professional site reflects professional products and services whereas an amateur looking site reflects an amateur business that is not to be taken seriously.

Internet Marketing Tip #2 Links
Links are very important to your Internet marketing campaign simply because they will help you in the ratings. Because of this you want to strive to have as many one-way links or even backwards links to your site as possible. The more you have the higher your site will be ranked with Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other big search engines and the more visitors you will have.

Internet Marketing Tip #3 Keywords
Many search engines focus on keywords to help rank your site. For example, when an individual searches for a particular brand of shoes and you sell those shoes you want to be ranked close to the top to help you get a new customer. If you want that customer you need to include the keywords he is searching for on your website to help your site be returned as a result. Because of this you need a variety of keyword articles on your site that are written around a variety of keywords that people use to find your products or services.

Internet Marketing Tip #4 Things to Avoid
Your Internet marketing can be perfect and bring in lots of visitors, however if your site uses frames, flash, JavaScript, and things of that nature that make it difficult to load your site then you will lose your visitors no matter how low your prices or great your products or services. So, when you are designing your site be sure you are aware of the different design methods that could make your site look really good, but take too long to open and turn visitors away.

About Author:
To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work from home Visit: http://www.SPBestBuys.com

Article Source: http://www.BharatBhasha.com
Article Url: http://www.bharatbhasha.com/home_business.php/42749

Website Success Recommendations from an Ex-Google Employee

2007-12-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

Day685
1. Four of the 26 pointers by GoogleGuy speak of adding content.

Add, add, add.
Google loves it, and your visitors will love it.
Assure it is quality content though. You are looking for quality over quantity here.
Sure, you can turn out 5 mediocre articles in the time it takes to write one excellent article. However, once that excellent article is on your site, people will bookmark your page and recommend you to friends and online contacts.

2. Your website should be clean and simple.

The simpler the HTML that you have on your website, the more the search engines will like you. Also, the more simply your visitors can navigate and read your site, the more THEY will like you. How simple is the layout of Google itself?
Yes, very simple.
How popular is it?
Very.

3. Keep your pages small.

Aim for between 5K and 10K. Many of your visitors will still be using dial-up connections. Don't alienate these visitors by building pages that load slowly.

4. Keep your content pages to no more than 500 words, generally speaking.

If it gets longer, that's fine. Assure, however, that it is not rambling, that it NEEDS to be longer. If you can make it shorter, do so.

5. Use your keyword in the following ways:

Once in the title, once in the description tag, once in the heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic and once high on the page. Don't aim for misspelled keywords.
The search engines are getting smarter and now often correct spelling mistakes as people search for them.

6. On each page, link to one or two highly ranked websites, which relate to your industry.

Assure that the links are in context with the rest of the article. Use your keyword in the link.

7. Create links from one page to another within your website.

In this way, you even-out the entire PR of your website, as opposed to having one page which ranks very highly and other pages which don't. So, for example, if when writing one article, you mention a point, which is covered in more detail in another article, link to that article. Use the keyword for the other article in the link.

8. Make your navigation system usable; both for visitors and search engine spiders.

For your visitors, assure that it is a simple and clean system.
For the search engine spiders, assure that your links go no more than 3 links deep.
This means that no page should be any more than one other page from the home page.
Cross-link from articles as much as possible.

9. Submit your website to as many directories as possible.

Here you will find an extensive list of available directories - "Strongest Links"
Many are free. If you can afford it, pay the extra cash to have your site listed in Yahoo and Looksmart.

10. Request link swaps from related website.

Better yet, join a quality link exchange program. I use the "Link Exchange program" supplied for free by SiteSell.com, with whom I host my other website, "Barcelona Explore"

11. Write good, concise content. Keep paragraphs short and to the point.

12. If you are using your website to promote your off-line business, don't just put up an online flyer.

Provide your visitors with information that they can use, not just information about you and your company. Unless they are specifically looking for information about you, they will click away from your site.

13. Study the information provided by your website statistics.

If your web host doesn't provide a good statistic program, use a free one like "StatCounter". Analyze the keywords that people have been using to find your site.
If any surprising ones come up, use them in your site.

14. Partake in forums pertaining to your website.

Absorb all the information that is out there, and more importantly, become part of it. The networking with other people in your sector is invaluable and will prove it's worth by increasing backlinks, viral networking and recommendations.

Following all these points will speed up your success. Success at any speed, however, is a guarantee if you focus on offering your visitors value, by providing excellent content.

About the Author: Ciara Carruthers is a successful website content writer. Employ her services or read her many free to use articles, including how to create a short term traffic building strategy.

Internet Home Business-Different Methods of Online Marketing

2007-12-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Day684
There are various approaches and method to online marketing. It is important to know about each method so that one can compare the results. This list sums up the online marketing methods.

Take a deep breath. This list is quite exhaustive!

Personal Marketing: This is marketing at personal level and includes telling your network and friends, making a business card, etc

Article Marketing: Article marketing implies writing articles and submitting them to web article directories. When you write article, you are allowed to put a backlink to your website in the author's bio box. People looking for information will come and read your article. If it interests them, they would visit your web site for more information. Article marketing is a very good method to build links for your site, enhance your website's search engine ranking and getting traffic. What is more, it is absolutely free until you wish to use paid services.

Bum marketing is a method of marketing using articles with a twist. Here, you search for potential keywords that can be dominated, write articles on those and submit them to article directories with an affiliate link to the product you want to promote.

Forum Marketing: A forum is a place where people gather and discuss their problems, strategies etc. There are many forums on the web that you can join and participate in discussion. Most of the forums allow a link back to your website in your signature text which would appear below the post you make. Again a good traffic builder.

Search Engine Marketing: This involves search engine optimization of your website design and content. Search engine use their algorithm to rank websites and when people search for something, these websites are displayed as the search engines would rank them. Search engine optimization or SEO are the methods by which you try to build your site and content so that it may please the search engines. You either learn SEO or use the paid services.

Pay Per Click Advertising: This is a paid service where you pay the service provider every time your link is clicked. This kind of marketing is quite popular with internet marketers. Apart from Google and Yahoo there are many other pay per click services available

Link Exchange: In this a website places a link for another website in exchange for its link on that site. Earlier it was also used for SEO purpose but a change in search engine algorithm has stripped that advantage. But it is still it is a powerful method for traffic generation.

Link Purchase: You can purchase placement of your website link on other website. This is very commonly done for SEO as one way incoming backlinks are used to rank your website by search engines. This method also brings in traffic if the site that you purchased link placement from is heavily visited website.

Classified Advertising: You can advertise your website on Classifieds websites on the web like Craigslist.com and USfreeads.com. Both paid and free services are available.

Ezine Marketing: This refers to email marketing. You can start your own newsletter or ezine or electronic magazine, which your subscribers can choose to receive. Creating an ezine is an integral part of your internet business.
You can also choose to purchase an advertising space in the ezines that are already running successfully. Your website gets exposed to targeted readers who may like to become your customers.

List Building: This refers to building a subscribers database who are entered into the list of that database when they opt in for your ezine or agree to a free download against providing you their email address. You can contact these subscribers with your offers and promos.

Lead Purchase: There are some paid services, which will provide you with the names and email addresses of the people or leads against a payment. This method is called lead generation. This is done by them by placing your opt-in form (Form which a visitor fills in order to subscribe) on heavily visited websites, a process that you can do on your site also. Normally you are charged per lead.

Viral Marketing: Here, you make a useful product like an ebook or software and allow people to pass it on freely. This helps in spreading your website links and branding your site. Apart from ebook or software, you can also build some humorous video or funny email. Build anything that people would like to pass on and share.

Press Releases: Here, you build a press release for your website and submit it to one or more press release sites like prweb.com. Press releases are done to create awareness among the web visitors and are displayed on various news channels or sites on the net. Also builds increased back links. Both free and paid submissions are available.

Joint Ventures: Here two or more marketers come together and promote a product or service in a way that it will benefit them all. Joint ventures are a great way to build your business because the marketing efforts are combined and results are always more than individual efforts.

Affiliate Program: You can launch your own affiliate program where people can join. Then they would advertise your product with their affiliate link. When a sale is made, they get a preset commission. You will need an affiliate program manager to do this. Clickbank.com offers an easy alternative.

Resell Rights Marketing: You can offer resell rights to your product where people would be able to sell it and keep all the money. It increases your product value and helps in building a name because more sales are made than when you sell it just on your own. Helps in branding too.

RSS Marketing: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it may be difficult to conceptualize in the beginning. RSS works by RSS feeds which needs to be generated by a website. People can subscribe to these RSS feeds and can view the content of the website via their RSS reader. By this people are enabled to receive the content directly on their desktop. This method is quite new as compared to others and has become really popular following spam issues in email marketing.

Blog Marketing: Blog is an online journal, which you can update on regular basis. You need a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger etc and you can publish at their site or host on your own. Blogs are immensely popular with marketers and are very much loved by search engines. A must for your business.

Social Bookmarking: This is latest marketing buzz. There are online bookmarking sites available, which people can use to bookmark the places on the web they like. You can display these bookmarking buttons on your site or blog and people may submit the link for bookmarking if they like your site. Generates good traffic.

Video Marketing: This is even newer. You can upload a video on the sites that allow. People would watch and then visit your site. Theory is similar to article marketing but media used is different. A popular website that allows video upload is Youtube.com.

About the Author: Arun Pal Singh is an internet marketing consultant and web author who runs website http://www.homeforprofits.com to help budding online entrepreneurs with information and ready made products. Visit http://www.homeforprofits.com to find how his ebooks, softwares, audios, website building material, traffic strategies and training videos and information can provide the leverage that your business needs to grow and expand.

Viral Marketing Tactics

2007-12-19T17:37:00.000-08:00

Day683
Truly there is no trick to viral marketing, no strange equations such as those found in SEO strategies. All that is necessary is to get people talking about your website, emailing about your website and just generally creating a buzz.

Every website owner should certainly include one or more of the following in his or her own e-commerce game plan.

1. Email Signature

This is certainly the quickest and most simple method of ‘infecting’ the e-world with your message. Attach a message both intriguing and explanatory, with perhaps a touch of humor if it fits your niche. Then, just get into contact with others; compliment other website owners on their site design, offer advice or opinions, or ask a question.

The key is to make your email memorable or valuable, so as that the receiver of the email may pass it on to a friend or business contact. One gold nugget of advice here is to build a list of business contacts. Such a list is easy to build via the usage of forums or online communities. From there, just keep your eye open for tools or articles, which you feel, may interest your contacts.

Don’t spam your contacts! Just offer them value and a neat little signature back to your website!

2. Offer Something For Free

One of the most searched for words on the internet today is: Free.
Every second website we encounter offers us something for free because that little four letter word is what catches the prey. Free newsletters are abounding, to the point where we now hate to subscribe; we would actually need to be paid to subscribe at times.

If from your website you can offer something of great value to your visitors, for free, you can set the virus free quite efficiently. Think ebook, ezine, member-only resource center, screensaver and desktop downloads. Find a way, always, to imbed a link, or preferably many links, to your website within whatever you are offering.

3. Article Writing

Writing articles and posting them on article distribution sites is actually a form of viral marketing. Why? Because if you have a good article, it will eventually end up distributed all around the net, all after you spending an hour writing and posting the article. Simple!

The process is simple: Write an excellent article, full of profitable keywords and post it to numerous article distribution sites. Slowly, as people find and republish your articles, the number of links pointing into your site will grow, as will your most important brand; your name.

Click on the following link to discover how to: Write Effective Web Content.

4. Affiliate Programs

So, can you pay to have other people ‘viralize’ your marketing? Yes.
This blessing comes in the name of Affiliate Programs. The wonderful part of it, of course, is that you only pay if it works!

Of course, you need a product to sell, as the method of payment to your affiliate is offered in the form of a percentage of the sale, which they have created. Ergo, you need a product or service to sell.

5. Make it easy for visitors to bookmark and recommend your site

This is also a very simple tactic to use and implement. It may not get you amazing results as it is a very passive form of marketing. However, it is good to make bookmarking and recommending your site as easy as possible for your visitor.

In closing, it should be noted that the benefits of a viral marketing campaign cannot be reaped straight away; patience is required. Those who are patient, and keep slowly working away on their plan, will realize just how powerful a good viral marketing campaign can be.

About the Author: Ciara Carruthers is a professional website content writer, specializing in the creation of ‘Information Centers’.
Discover the Viral Marketing Principles: The Basics, on her website, “Website Copywriter”.

Online Business, Shopping Carts and Paypal

2007-12-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Day682
The Paypal sign has become so common, almost everyone has seen it while shopping online. A great many online retailers and auctions sites, such as eBay are using Paypal, even many traditional stores who have websites now use it. It is easy for anyone, whether a business or a consumer, to set up an account and use it.

Though most people who have been on the internet for awhile know what Paypal is, there are still some who don't. Paypal is a payment system that facilitates a person's ability to request and accept payments, send invoices, and withdraw money to savings or checking account. Paypal will also send a check for funds when requested. Another option is to get Paypal's debit card or even their credit card.

Anyone can use Paypal's website with ease as navigation is simple. Basic, premier and merchant are the account types available. The basic account is for those who only plan to make instant transfers from one account to another and to make payments for online purchases. With the premier account, credit card payments can be accepted and the merchant account is for those who use Paypal extensively for business.

There are no fees associated with the basic account, but to accept credit card payments, there are fees. Considering the convenience that the ability to accept credit cards has, these fees are quite reasonable. Subscription services that allow customers to subscribe to have fees withdrawn from their account for monthly services are available, too. Even donations can be set up as a service. A protection service is also offered that protects both consumers and businesses from fraud.

Do you need to invoice for services, multiple purchases or shipping and handling? With Paypal's invoicing tool, you can create invoices that are itemized with the taxes and shipping charges included. The requirements for Paypal are a valid checking account, physical address and email address to set up an account. There is no credit check and it is easy to use. The information required during sign up is, of course, needed to facilitate notifications, money transfers and shipping address for purchased items. It also gives Paypal the information needed if you request that a Paypal check be sent to you. As a safe means of paying for purchases and receiving funds, Paypal is about the best available online at this time.

Many businesses find that using shopping carts makes for greater ease and convenience when consumers make purchases. This doesn't eliminate the use of Paypal, however. Quite a few shopping carts have the ability to interface with the services offered by Paypal. One example is www.1cartplus.com. Customers will still be able to use Paypal for their purchases when using your shopping cart. There are more features with the shopping cart than could be had with Paypal alone.

So customers are not even aware of the redirection to the shopping cart site, it is possible to match the shopping cart to your site in the set up at places like www.1cartplus.com. There are often features offered with shopping carts, such as affiliate programs, customer tracking, quantity discounts, coupons, shipping labels, accounting software interfaces, auto-mail responders and many other things, that Paypal doesn't offer. Easier payments, easier account management, more choices for you and your customers are what you can get with a shopping cart and Paypal interface.

When you use a shopping cart instead of just using Paypal, you are able to offer more checkout options as well as Paypal. There are customers who would rather not go through the sign-up process for Paypal and just buy from one place. Since the checkout process is longer and can be tedious for customers who have to sign up for Paypal, having other payment options saves a good deal of time.

Having a shopping cart with lots of choices that make things easier for customers will keep them returning to make more purchases and bookmarking you site future ease in finding you.

For sending, receiving, transferring of money and for invoicing services and purchases, the ease, convenience and low cost of Paypal is hard to beat. Paypal's reasonable fees and the ability to interface with many shopping cart programs makes it easy for you, the seller, to allow customers multiple payment choices. A shopping cart with a Paypal interface gives you such features as customer tracking, shipment tracking, account management, and coupons, as well as affiliate programs. Think about using a shopping cart such as the one at www.1cartplus.com for your online business. There are several such shopping carts and all have wonderful features. This is about the best course you can take if you do a considerable amount of business. If you do a light amount of selling, just Paypal might be all you need.

About the Author: Nick Hurd is the CEO of 1CartPlus.com, LLC. 1CartPlus.com is complete shopping cart and e-commerce system that supports a comprehensive package of tools that totally automate the marketing and fulfillment requirements for its clients. You can find more information at www.1cartplus.com - a shopping cart and e-commerce system on steroids.

Essential Tips to Opening a Payment Processing Merchant Account

2007-12-17T16:59:00.000-08:00

Day681
If you want to start accepting credit card payments online for the first time, then this article is a must read. Before obtaining a merchant account, make sure you shop around and do your research. Let the buyer beware certainly applies when choosing a merchant account provider, as there are many important aspects which need to be considered. Making a poor choice is likely to result in numerous complications and high unexpected ongoing costs.

Often, businesspeople new to online business will focus on one merchant account issue: discount rate. A discount rate is the flat percentage taken from each credit card transaction by a merchant account provider. Although getting a reasonable rate is important, there are many other charges, fees, limits and business considerations that need to be considered. Issues like customer service, provider reputation, and how a provider performs risk assessment on your business are all important.

10 tips to consider before choosing your merchant account provider:

1. KNOW YOUR NEEDS – Do you want batch (manual) payment processing or real time processing? If you expect low volume sales then manual processing may be a viable route. Before approaching merchant account processors know your actual or expected margins, transaction volume and internal resources. What will your hardware, software and service requirements be? You can go directly to banks or ISOs for merchant accounts, however putting together all the components to e-commerce (catalog system, credit card processing, order system, billing system, etc) can be a nightmare. This is where sometimes it can pay to partner with a ‘holistic’ payment processor which may charge slightly higher rates, but can provide complete and secure payment processing merchant accounts.

2. 24 HOUR PAYMENT CUSTOMER SERVICE – Not only is it wise for you to get 24 hour technical support for your merchant account, but also of great importance is 24 hour payment support for your own paying customers. Providing 24 hour telephone payment support on your website for high volume sites could increase sales by 20-30%, especially in the early stages whilst you fine tune your site.

3. RELIABILITY & INTEGRITY– Check the merchant account providers trading history and try to get testimonials or reviews of the processor. A dishonest processor can tack on declined transaction charges in numerous ways, so it is important to work with a reputable processing company. Common complaints against merchant account providers include sudden rate increases, long term lock-in contracts, hidden fees and add-on charges, high monthly-minimums, heavy rolling chargeback reserves, high chargeback fees, and surprise monthly processing limits.

4. SPEED OF SERVICE – If it takes more than 3-4 business days to get your merchant account up and running, then start questioning the setup and capability of a processor. Likewise if approval is instant or overnight, alarm bells should also start to ring. Setting up a new merchant account should take 2-4 days to allow for a thorough risk assessment and appropriate account setup.

5. FEES – Make sure you gain full visibility of all fees (application, setup, statement, transaction, discount rate, and fraudulent transactions – chargeback’s). Ask for a full disclosure of ALL merchant account fees and charges before signing anything! Also bear in mind that depending on your business setup; your merchant account processor may have to hold a reserve on your account.

6. UNDERWRITING AND RISK ASSESSMENT – Before approving a merchant account, the merchant account provider will underwrite and perform a risk assessment of your business and business model. Find out if your business will be classified as “High Risk”. If you trade in a high risk industry such as adult, travel, dating, or pharmacy, then you will have to approach a high risk merchant account specialist.

7. FRAUD MANAGEMENT – Chargeback’s and fraud related charges can be a very high cost for some online businesses. Make sure you protect your profits by using a processor that has a sophisticated and comprehensive fraud management system. A large variety of methods to minimize fraud should be in place on your merchant account including customer details verification, geographical location cross-checks, and known fraudster database cross-checks.

8. HIDDEN CLAUSES – Read the fine print. Read ALL of the fine print. Too many people today skim over the content of a service contract, which in the payment processing industry is very unwise. Be warned, low rates rarely equate with merchant friendly policies.

9. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS - A card from outside of the processor's country results in what is often called a non-qualified rate, which can result in a fee of 3.50% - 6% of the sale. If you expect card payments from more than one country, try to choose a processor that has an international payment network, who also supports transactions in multiple currencies. If you wish to advertise to multiple markets, a multi-currency and multi-lingual platform is a must to maximize your revenue potential.

10. MONTHLY LIMITS - As a precaution, many merchant account providers will impose limits on your monthly revenue intake. Processing more than your limit, in some cases will also result in held funds. The length of time the funds are held depends on the risk factor and the bank with which you deal. Should you surpass the limit that the bank is willing to allow for more than three months, you may receive an immediate termination letter. Look for a merchant account that is flexible with your needs. Some merchant account providers have policies with generous limits or no limit at all.

Take a wide perspective on factors such as sensible policies and superior customer service when choosing the best provider for your unique business needs. Evaluate security protocols, reliability, and the degree of customer care your business will receive. Every business is unique, and the best merchant account provider for each business will vary from one provider to the next.

About the Author: Damien Gough is an experienced online business development specialist, who has assisted a variety of internet start up businesses spanning the United Kingdom, USA, and Australia. He has multi industry experience with general ecommerce sites such as recruitment, retail and manufacturing, as well as sites such as dating and travel which require high risk merchant account services.

Building a Successful Ecommerce Website

2007-12-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

Day675
Here's a good article called 8 Rules for a Successful Ecommerce Website I found over at about.com:

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/ecommerce/a/ecomentice.htm

Brides Cookbook Online!

2007-12-10T05:47:00.000-08:00

Day674
My hard copy cookbook is done and on my store! I am so excited!

http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/4264565

I've worked on this a long time and appreciate having a CafePress store where I can sell it myself!

A Brides Cookbook or Surviving the First Year

2007-12-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

Day674
I’ve been working on my store of course, but the reason my postings have been a little sparse lately is, I’ve also been writing a cookbook. I am testing it online as an e-book first. I like the idea of a cookbook being on the computer because so many of us have computers in or near the kitchen and we can just pull up a recipe, as we need it. And e-books have searches built in so you can jump right to the recipe you want.

It’s been a fun project and I do plan on putting it on CafePress as a print on demand in the not too distant future. The recipes are very easy and I have included lots of entertaining and “setting up house” tips.

Check it out! http://www.abridescookbook.com/

Still Spooked by E-Mail Marketing?

2007-11-18T19:09:00.000-08:00

Day663
Here's another article by my favorite internet consultant. (My husband!)

E-Mail has been around for roughly 15 years already depending on what you count as the beginning. Hard to believe isn’t it? Remember when you got your first email address? Maybe it was at work, maybe it was through Compuserve, Prodigy or AOL…you dialed a local number from home, sometimes several times to get a free line, then waited while the email crawled in. “You’ve got Mail” was a happy time back then. A lot has changed over the last few years and the term “email” has become a noun, a verb and sometimes a curse word. With all the filters, privacy tricks and even laws to protect us, email has certainly taken on a life of its own and there are a lot of folks around the world always trying to get around these various barriers causing the rest of us to be on the continual defensive.

I bet you occasionally get a good or at least necessary email though even today. Like a hole in one on the golf course (I’ve never gotten of those) it’s enough to keep you going back and slugging through the rest, for that relatively rare gem.

While I am not in a position to solve all of our issues with email today, I can report to you that on a dollars earned to dollars spent basis, email marketing for business is more than twice as profitable ($45.65 for each dollar spent) as the next most profitable direct marketing you can do which is internet advertising ($20.19 / $1) according to a study done in 2007 by the Direct Marketing Association. The numbers continued to decrease for newspaper, direct mail, telemarketing and so on. Yes in spite of what you may have heard about open rates (yes they are low) and automatic filters (they can tend to keep out honest messages as much as malicious ones) email marketing is extremely cost effective.

Some tips on using email marketing effectively: 1. Do NOT buy lists. There are plenty of better ways to get email addresses of people that are actually interested in what you have. Start by asking your existing customers. 2. Do NOT send emails too frequently. The correct frequency will be related to the value you are offering. Don’t send them just to send them, but have a purpose, and one that has perceived value in the mind of the recipient. 3. Do NOT abuse your list. Those who give up their email address to you do so with a level of trust. If you violate that trust you will lose them and probably sooner rather than later.

For more on proper and effective use of email you can attend a Lunch & Learn session at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce on November 14th at 12 noon. I will be presenting and leading a discussion on how to use email most effectively. You do not have to be a chamber member to attend. Contact the Chamber at 328-6111 for more information or to register.

Using technology can be frustrating at times, but it is not going away so we can either try and run the other way and get crushed or we can learn to use it effectively and prosper with the best going into the future. With the Holiday Season upon us there is no better time to get a handle on this not so new but continually evolving technology.

John Geiger, owner of Webmasters ICE, has over five years experience helping small and medium-sized companies and organizations capitalize on the power of the internet through consulting, education, and supporting products and services. His focus and passion is the use of the internet in providing more effective overall marketing strategies and highly measurable levels of marketing success. http://www.webmastersice.com/

CafePress offering Free Shipping for Limited Time

2007-11-15T06:12:00.000-08:00

Day660
Get free shipping* on orders of $50 or more until Friday, November 16th at noon PST. Just enter coupon code FREESHIP_50 at checkout. *standard or economy only

Now is the perfect time to stock up on those holiday keepsake ornaments, greeting cards, and holiday theme T-shirts for the entire family!

http://www.givitup.com

Promoting Your Online Store for the Holidays

2007-11-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

Day659
Here are some ideas CafePress listed to help shopkeepers promote their online stores for the holidays. http://www.cafepress.com

Let your shoppers know that your shop is ready for the Holiday Season. Shoppers are hungry for information this time of year. Don't be shy about sending out newsletters, emails and direct mail to your customers letting them know about new products, sales or special editions.

Here are some suggestions to help steer shoppers to your shop:

· Add banners on your main website to advertise your shop.
· Send an email to your customers. We have a few Email Scripts to help get you started.
· Buy ad space on websites where your target shoppers are likely to visit.
· Buy ad space on magazines — check about unsold ad space that may be available for a discount.
· Buy keywords on search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
· Frequent Message Boards where your target shoppers hang out and make friends with them so they can help spread the word about your shop!
· Team up with a nonprofit or a club and donate a design to them in return for a link back to your shop.
· Print up fliers and distribute locally.
Take advantage of the Bulk Pricing Program! Sell your unique merchandise at craft fairs, trade shows and flea markets.

CafePress Sale

2007-11-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

Day651
CafePress just announced a sale good through November 9th. $10 off every $50 order. Just use the coupon code HOLI2007 at checkout.

http://www.givitup.com

West Point Gifts

2007-10-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

Day644
My husband is a graduate and I spent many fun weekends at West Point when we were in college. It's a beautiful place doing a great job creating men and women of strong ethics and character. We were just up there for one of his reunions and took these pictures, which I put on; buttons, mugs, mouse pads, ornaments and calendars.

http://www.givitup.com

Keeping the Website Fresh

2007-10-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

Day642
Everyone knows it’s important to keep adding new content to your website to keep the search engines visiting. Storeowners know that they have to move things around and add new items to keep their customers returning. Online storeowners can do both of these things at once by constantly adding new products. And that’s what I’ve been up to these past couple weeks!

Here’s my latest with its description: See all products in my Inspirational T-shirts section at: http://www.givitup.com

No Smoking T-shirts, Buttons, Magnets and More

2007-10-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

No Smoking T-shirts and buttons

Day641
Today I added 2 types of No Smoking designs. One on baby clothes that says, “Please Don’t Smoke Around Me, I’m New!” and another for t-shirts, buttons, magnets, etc that says, “Smoking Sucks!”

http://www.givitup.com/

More Baby Clothes!

2007-10-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Day640
I added Grandma magnet baby and kid clothes to my Moms, Dads and Kids section. These would be cute baby shower gifts and Christmas presents.

http://www.givitup.com/

Cute New Baby Clothes!

2007-10-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

Day639
I love our little onesies so I've spent some time this past week coming up with a couple new designs in my Moms, Dads and Kids section. It's getting close to the Christmas buying season so I want to have lots of choices!

http://www.givitup.com/

Halloween Clothing and Gifts

2007-10-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Day632
I left my Halloween section in a hidden section of my shop as an experiment to see how many people shop strictly from ads and links on other sites as opposed to “browsing” around my shop. You may still buy from the section and there is a lot of fun Halloween merchandise!

Halloween Merchandise

Tote Bags for Moms

2007-10-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

Day629
I’m working on Christmas gifts!

Lets face it - moms are chauffers. And usually they have to spend a lot of time waiting for their kids. Have a tote bag packed to grab on your way out the door filled with things to keep you occupied while you wait: take a Christian designed tote with your Bible study items in it, take your Mom design tote with bills to pay, lists to work on, the daily newspaper, you get the idea. You can even send us your own design and we'll put it on a tote. Visit http://www.givitup.com
and use our product drop down box to see all tote bags.

Photo Christmas Cards

2007-10-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

Day628
Send us your favorite photo and we'll send you your Christmas cards! We sell individual cards or in packages of 10 or 20. So whether you want to create one special card for a friend or send the same one to everyone you know, we can take care of it. 100% 30 day guarantee. Easy ordering. Visit our custom section at http://www.givitup.com

Love God Line of Christian Apparel, Cards and Gifts

2007-10-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Day624
The more I think about this positive thinking thing, the more I feel like we should plaster positive Christian messages everywhere. Not only so we can have them burned into our minds, but also to get other people to think about God and good too.

I just added a new section to my shop: http://www.givitup.com

How to add RSS feed

2007-09-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

Day610
For those of you who bookmark blogs and sites, but then never think to go back and read them. Let me explain how you can use the RSS feed. Click on the orange RSS icon in the upper right of my blog. This will open up a choice of places you can have the feed show up for you to read. Select one and you will get the new posts there. It's an efficient way to keep up with your online reading.