Web Moves Blog

Accurately calculating ROI in an online ad campaign
Today more than ever, the need to significantly increase your ROI (Return on Investment) in your online marketing campaigns is imperative to the overall success of your company. In order to avoid loosing valuable market share to your competition and to continually increase your brand recognition or brand awareness, boosting your ROI can have short as well as long-term beneficial effects on your overall sales, market segmentation and penetration.

To reach such goals, careful planning is everything and can save you a lot of time, frustration and, most of all, a lot of money.

The definition of ROI in online marketing campaigns
ROI is defined as the profit made from the advertising money your company spent on a particular ad campaign. At the most basic level, if somebody spends $ 3,000 on search engine advertising and if that money generates $ 12,000 in new sales and acquires new clients, this could be viewed as a positive marketing campaign and could be identified as a success.

In ROI, the ultimate goal is to increase the total volume of sales, while spending the least to acquire each and every new customer. �Fine-tuning� and adjusting all online marketing campaigns through the various search engines and reallocating your ad dollars to maximize your ROI should be your top priority in search engine marketing.

How to boost your ROI in any online marketing campaign
In order to calculate a campaign�s ROI with a reasonable amount of accuracy, you will need to have access to these five important data sets:

1. The number of clicks from visitors that used your paid listings. That number is usually provided by the search engine used in your ad campaign.

2. The amount of money you spend during a given timeframe. Many search engine marketers run daily, weekly or sometimes monthly campaigns and output ROI reports for those periods. Again, this data is provided by the search engine used during that advertising campaign.

3. The number of completed orders (or sales) from the paid listings for the specific product or service you are offering. These numbers are generated by the eCommerce functionality of your site or the eCommerce solution you are using, if provided by a third party.

4. The retail price of a product. That data should immediately be available to you, since you are the administrator of that campaign.

5. The total dollar amount in sales generated by all your orders for that product, which came directly from those paid listings. That data is available from your eCommerce solution or eCommerce third party solution.

What to do with all that data
To calculate your total ROI from that campaign is relatively easy. The simple math formulas below will guide you step by step:

� The ad revenue is the amount your campaign earned, after all your advertising costs have been determined.

The formula is Revenue minus Ad Cost

� Your CPA (Cost per Acquisition) is the amount of money you actually spent to get each sale in your campaign:

The formula is Ad Cost divided by the Number of Sales

� Your final ROI is the actual profitability of your ad campaign, based on a percentage:

The formula is Ad Profit divided by Ad Cost multiplied by 100

Important notes
One word of advice: in an ideal online advertising campaign, it is strongly recommended to include all ad listings (in your titles and descriptions) and your landing pages if you happen to analyze more than one product (or more than one keyword). Failing to do that could generate reports that could be useless to you, since there won�t be any accurate way of tracking which ad sold which product.

You can set up as many reports as the number of search engines you are using, since they should all be computed separately for maximum accuracy. If you prefer, you could also organize your reports by product only, or by specific keyword.

A little imagination or flexibility can go a long way in truly maximizing the overall value of all your reports.

Conclusion
Significantly boosting the overall ROI of any online marketing campaign is easy if you follow the steps given in this article. Implementing such steps will have a drastic difference in the overall return on investment of your ad campaigns.

Since search engine marketing represents such an important part of online marketing today, carefully analyzing and implementing the ROI reporting model above should significantly increase your market share and profitability of your online marketing efforts.

Additionally, and for maximum results, search engine marketers are encouraged to read more on Bid Management Tools and how they can help you optimize the ROI on all your online ad campaigns.

Reference:
“Search Engine Advertising” by Catherine Seda.
347 pages. New Riders Publishing. Indianapolis, IN. 46240.

Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales

Identifying your Niche
The Internet has become a valuable source of information and purchasing tool for today�s consumer. With the click of a mouse you can find almost anything from products to services on the web, and you can shop for the best prices and values all hours of the day from the convenience of your own home. For some of these same reasons, mail order businesses are also on the rise with consumers finding better values from companies that don�t have the overhead associated with a storefront.

With everything at the consumers� fingertips, the home business owner can also benefit from today�s market culture. Just as consumers can shop from their living rooms and kitchens, business owners can conduct business in the convenience of their own homes. If you are looking to set your own hours, have less commuting time, and enjoy the general freedoms of working for yourself, starting a home business may be right for you.

One important business plan to attend to when you first start developing a home business is to invest time in finding your niche.

So what does this mean, finding your niche? Identifying a niche is about finding a distinct segment of consumer interest, then capitalizing on it. It means finding that particular spot in the business world where you can stand out amongst others. For example there may be hundreds of booksellers out there, but how many specialize in books on a particular interest of yours? If your home business focuses on selling books, you may be competing with the hundreds of other sellers. But if your home business focuses on selling books about outdoor sports, you may find yourself in direct competition with fewer businesses.

Now that you know what a niche is, how do you go about identifying yours? You can start by asking your self a few important questions:

What am I good at?

Take an inventory of your skills. Are you a good mechanic? Are you a wiz with home decorating? Do your friends all come to you when they have computer problems to fix? Do you know almost everything there is to know about a particular topic? Find the things you already have some skill in, and start a list. You may be surprised where your talents lie.

What do I enjoy doing?

What things do you love to do so much that you would probably do them whether there was a profit involved or not? The best place to start with this question is to look at your hobbies. These are often the things you pay a fairly significant amount of money to be involved in. Why not check it out to see if you can make a profit at these very same things? Starting a home business can take a lot of time and effort, and having a passion for the focus of your business can be a great source of the stamina necessary to make it through the difficulties in the beginning.

What is there a need for?

After you jot down what you are good at and what you love to do, it�s time to assess the market for these things. Are you always looking for supplies for your hobby, but can�t ever seem to find what you need? It�s very likely others are having the same difficulty, and a home business that supplies this need would be very well received by this segment of the market. Or maybe you love to decorate your kids� birthday cakes, and your neighbors would rather pick theirs up at the local grocery store but can�t stand the small selection. This is a market for which you already have the skills and interest to meet the needs.

—–Side Bar—–
If you are planning to do your business entirely on the Internet, one great tool you can use to check whether there is market for your idea is the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

You simply enter the keyword that people might use to search for your product and it�ll return the number of times that term was searched on last month. Amazing isn�t it?
—–Side Bar—–

But don�t be afraid of markets where you may have some skill, but have a lot to learn. As long as you have the willingness to put time and effort into becoming an expert in your niche, you will be able to develop the specialization you need to be a leader in the market.

Once you answer these questions and find the distinct area that will set your business apart from others, you have identified your niche and are ready to develop your home business.

Author:
Vishal Rao

Writing SEO Copy – 8 Steps to Success
We all know that the lion’s share of web traffic comes through the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is what the search engines are after.

There’s a lot of information around about how to incorporate keyword phrases into your HTML meta tags. But that’s only half the battle. You need to think of these tags as street-signs. That’s how the search engines view them. They look at your tags and then at your copy. If the keywords you use in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords.

But the search engines don’t stop there. They also consider how often the keyword phrase is used on the page.

To put it simply, if you don’t pepper your site with your primary keywords, you won’t appear in the search results when a potential customer searches for those keywords.

But how do you write keyword-rich copy without compromising readability?

Readability is all-important to visitors. And after all, it’s the visitors that buy your product or service, not search engines.

By following these 8 simple guidelines, you’ll be able to overhaul the copy on your website ensuring it’s agreeable to both search engines and visitors.

1) Categorise your pages

Before writing, think about the structure of your site. If you haven’t built your site yet, try to create your pages around key offerings or benefits. For example, divide your Second Hand Computers site into separate pages for Macs, and PCs, and then segment again into Notebooks, Desktops, etc. This way, you’ll be able to incorporate very specific keyword phrases into your copy, thereby capturing a very targeted market. If you’re working on an existing site, print out each page and label it with its key point, offering, or benefit.

2) Find out what keywords your customers are searching for

Go to www.wordtracker.com and subscribe for a day (this will only cost you about AUD$10). Type in the key points, offerings, and benefits you identified for each page, and spend some time analysing what words customers use when they’re searching for these things. These are the words you’ll want to use to describe your product or service. (Make sure you read WordTracker’s explanation of their results.)

3) Use phrases, not single words

Although this advice isn’t specific to the web copy, it’s so important that it’s worth repeating here. Why? Well firstly, there’s too much competition for single keywords. If you’re in computer sales, don’t choose “computers” as your primary keyword. Go to Google and search for “computers” and you’ll see why� Secondly, research shows that customers are becoming more search-savvy � they’re searching for more and more specific strings. They’re learning that by being more specific, they find what they’re looking for much faster. Ask yourself what’s unique about your business? Perhaps you sell cheap second hand computers? Then why not use “cheap second hand computers” as your primary keyword phrase. This way, you’ll not only stand a chance in the rankings, you’ll also display in much more targeted searches. In other words, a higher percentage of your site’s visitors will be people after cheap second hand computers. (WordTracker’s results will help you choose the most appropriate phrases.)

4) Pick the important keyword phrases

Don’t include every keyword phrase on every page. Focus on one or two keyword phrases on each page. For your Macs page, focus on “cheap second hand macs”. For the PCs page, focus on “cheap second hand pcs”, etc.

5) Be specific

Don’t just say “our computers”. Wherever you would normally say “our computers”, ask yourself if you can get away with saying “our cheap second hand Macs” or “our cheap second hand PCs”. If this doesn’t affect your readability too badly, it’s worth doing. It’s a fine balance though. Remember, your site reflects the quality of your service. If your site is hard to read, people will infer a lot about your service�

6) Use keyword phrases in links

Although you shouldn’t focus on every keyword phrase on every page, it’s a good idea to link your pages together with text links. This way, when the search engines look at your site, they’ll see that the pages are related. Once again, the more text links the better, especially if the link text is a keyword phrase. So on your “Cheap Second Hand Macs” page, include a text link at the bottom to “Cheap Second Hand PCs”. If you can manage it without affecting readability, also include one within the copy of the page. For example, “As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand PCs”. TIP: If you don’t want your links to be underlined and blue, include the following in your CSS file:

Then format the HTML of each link as follows:

As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand pcs/font>.

7) Use keyword phrases in headings

Just as customers rely on headings to scan your site, so to do search engines. This means headings play a big part in how the search engines will categorise your site. Try to include your primary keyword phrases in your headings. In fact, think about inserting extra headings just for this purpose. Generally this will also help the readability of the site because it will help customers scan read.

8) Test keyword phrase density

Once you’ve made a first pass at the copy, run it through a density checker to get some metrics. Visit http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php and type in the domain and keyword phrase you want to analyse. It’ll give you a percentage for all the important parts of your page, including copy, title, meta keywords, meta description, etc. The higher the density the better. Generally speaking, a density measurement of at least 3-5% is what you’re looking for. Any less, and you’ll probably need to take another pass.

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be well on your way to effective SEO copy.

Just remember, don’t overdo it. It’s not easy to find the balance between copy written for search engines and copy written for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult to achieve without professional help. Don’t worry, though. If you’ve already performed your keyword analysis, a professional website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword phrases into your copy at no extra charge.

Author Bio:
Glenn Murray heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further details.

8 Things I have Learned As An Internet Marketer
I started as an internet marketer, like I am sure a few of you have with various mlm programs. After little success with these types of programs I finally decided it was time I make my own website and get serious about marketing on the internet. Although I have not been doing this as long as some, there have been a few things that I have learned along the way that have helped me achieve much more success than my previous ventures in mlm. I would like to share with you 8 things I have learned since becoming an internet marketer.

1. Choosing The Right Program

Choosing the right program to affiliate with is still a relevant way of making money on the internet. I learned not believe all the hype surrounding every affiliate program on the net. Instead I look for affiliate programs that pay at least 30% commissions and are run by reputable internet marketers.

2. Choosing The Right Tools

I learned quickly that you need much more than just a website to become successful. Choosing the right tools to optimize your internet business is crucial if you hope to succeed. Tools like auto responders, professional emailboxes, and software that help with linking and submitting your site to search engines is very important information to have. However, some of these tools can be expensive, but the return on investment is priceless.

3. Targeted Traffic

Getting the right people to your website is something all internet marketers are constantly working to achieve. In this business you find a lot of tire kickers, these are the people that may download a free product or tour your site but they have no intentions of ever buying any of your products or services. Finding targeted traffic is what you need, people that our looking for a home-based business or a product or service you are selling.

4. Quality Leads

Quality leads are very important when talking about targeted traffic. there are plenty of companies that offer leads and subscription services, and I suggest trying a few different companies out, because you just do not know what type of leads you will get. One of the first companies I used to buy leads from provided me with leads from people all over the world, most of whom did not speak English, or they wanted me to either give them money or go out on a date! So I learned to ask around and investigate a few companies out before I invest in leads.

5. Publishing A Newsletter

Publishing my own newsletter is very important, probably more important than I first realized. With your own newsletter filled with relevant content that can help your prospects, you gain trust and credibility. Your prospects are more willing to buy your product or service if they feel as if they know you.

6. Reciprocal Linking

This was a powerful lesson to be learned. Search engines love reciprocal links when deciding your page rank and position in their search engine. This was an eye opener. With the right software I was able to make reciprocal linking work to my advantage, without having to manually do it myself. Reciprocal linking has helped me with my alexa ranking as well as in the search engines.

7. Finding JV Partners

Finding Joint Venture (JV) partners is also very important is building a successful online venture, in a sense reciprocal linking is a JV partnership in that you are hoping your link on someone else site will bring you visitors and vice-a-versa. However, there are also other JV partnerships available and are quite easy to find, if you know where to look ( see below). I have a few JV partners that I work with to mutually make our businesses profitable. It is the old adage of �you scratch my back, I scratch you back� where each partner brings something different to the table and combined they form a JV partnership.

8. Business Forums

I found reading and posting to business forums to be invaluable to the success of my business. These are great places to learn from people that have been doing business for a long time. I also told you about finding JV partners, well business forums is where to find people you would like to do business with. Most forums allow you to use a signature file that you can use as �free� advertising for your business.

In closing, I would like to add that there are probably a hundred more lessons I have learned since starting my online business. I continue to learn something new everyday that only helps me in my goal of becoming a successful internet marketer. Good luck.

Author Bio:
Dirk Wagner is CEO and owner of http://team4success.biz and the free, easy to install #1 home business toolbar with automated updates.A website dedicated to helping the home-based business entrepreneur start and succeed with there very own home-based business.

Google’s Books
Google is expected to open its books this week. Will it be revealed that they are making more money than they allure too?

No matter what the numbers say, other search engines namely Yahoo and Microsoft(MSN) are eager to find out what they are. Since the secretive Google has been able to hide behind being a private company.

They hope to find clues on what Googles profits are and possibly how much money Google spends on technology for their search engine. All in the desire to get their own share of the Online Search Market.

It is expected that Google makes more than they say each time someone uses their engine. Indicating that there is possibly plenty of cash for all interested in the search engine game. Even if they are smaller players offering ‘niche’ services.

Yahoo who has approximately 5% of a stake in Google, anticipates that there is plenty of room for both Google and Yahoo to thrive with search engine services.

Larry Page one of Googles founders told Reuters recently that he expects online search to be a “healthy market with many companies”.

Even Microsoft, seeing that Yahoo is breaking away from Google and coming up with their own Yahoo Slurp is also hard at work trying to design a better search engine in MSN and expects to offer a better way to search as early as July.

All this in trying to get a piece of the over $6 billion dollar search engine advertising pie. Plus the hopes of making search engine results more useful to surfers.

We all know that Google makes money with Google Adwords by displaying results along side or on top of search results. Now Google is announcing their own email service which will also provide even more revenue by having advertisements along side email messages.

The Security and Exhange Commission is most likely going to require Google to show their books. Since they expect that Google has over $10 million in assets and possibly over 500 equity holders.

The bottom line is whether Google makes an initial public offering or not. Their financial disclosures will hopefully show that there is plently of room for all to have their share of the search engine market.

Author Bio:
Jim Hoffman is owner of Inet Goodies. An internet help company offering SEO, Traffic, and Hosting solutions. http://www.inetgoodies.com

5 Powerful Tips To Beat The Biggest Problem All Marketers Face
I bet you can’t tell me… the single biggest problem facing Every Direct Marketer, new and old. It’s not generating traffic, nor building an O’pt-In list, nor is it finding products to market and it’s not a lack of Cash.

You can buy traffic, you can buy O’pt-In list members, you can make or buy products and you can even borrow Cash. The biggest single problem for any Direct Marketer is How To Earn Your Prospect’s Trust. Learn how to earn AND keep trust and you open up huge new Marketing possibilities.

Too many salespeople of doubtful credentials, and too many adverts promising so much and delivering so little have hardened consumers, they no longer trust Marketers and Marketing claims without a great deal of convincing.So how exactly do you turn a skeptic into a believer?

Tip #1 – Make Your First Contact Count
Your initial point of contact with prospects is typically:

* An advert, in a PPC, a banner exchange, a classified or solo campaign

* An entry in a Search Engine directory

* Or an article you have written.

Unfortunate as it may be, people do judge others by first contact. If your initial impression of someone is poor, chances are that you will not give them a second look, be it in business or your personal affairs. Make sure your initial point of contact with all prospects is to your advantage. This does NOT mean expensive, glitzy or superficial. It means make your initial contact Sincere. Keep that one word in mind as you design all your sales and marketing strategies and your Initial Contacts will always be positive.

Tip #2 – Products, Pricing, Promises and Personality
Sincerity in your contacts with prospects comes from applying the (modified) 4 p’s of marketing:

* Products Market the best products you can and never settle for second best. Add value and benefit to your prospect with quality merchandise. Resist the temptation to market “Cost Cutting” alternatives that are in fact more expensive due to their poorer real value.

* Pricing Price your merchandise at a fair value for the producer, the consumer and the marketer. Over pricing your products is a self defeating tactic because prospects learn to avoid your pitch and with over high pricing you invite competition to under cut your cost and price base.

* Promises Your sales literature and copy must be accurate and reflect the true benefits of your products and services. This does not mean you should be unduly modest, by all means make big claims, but make sure you can prove and demonstrate anything you promise. Remember, in this context, any guarantee you give must be more solid than any Banks Vaults and worth as much as the contents of Fort Knox

* Personality Inject your personality into your contact with prospects. People love to do business with people they know. Avoid doing things you feel uncomfortable with, but do tell people about yourself, your failures, your wins, your hopes and your fears. Be the human face of you business and build a sincere relationship with prospects.

Tip #3 – Communication
When you get past the initial contact, the next hurdle in building trust is communication with your prospects. There are several ways to do this:

* A sequential autoresponder with relevant messages sent to your O’pt-In prospects at regular AND frequent intervals.

* An e-zine sent out to subscribers with useful information and not just an excuse for another advert.

* Articles showing your prospects how YOU manage your business and personal tasks, tactics and strategies.

Communication is two way traffic. Ask your prospects for input into your professional relationship and how they think you can improve it. Listen to your prospects.

Tip #4 – Credibility
Prospects always seek comfort that they are doing the right thing. It pays to use “borrowed” credibility if you are not a world recognised expert in your field. This is where testimonials enter the picture. Here are a few ways in which you can obtain testimonials and build credibility with a new product or service:

* Give a few samples away to a test group in return for the testimonial

* Use functionally disabled or time barred samples as demo versions which you can give away to prospects

* Develop fully functional modules with less features than the standard product and give those away to prospects.

* Develop e-courses and other training programs showing prospects the benefits and training them in how to use and consume your products and services.

Tip #5 – Service
Your prospect’s Trust is very hard earned. But this is as nothing when compared to retaining their Trust. Once a prospect becomes a customer, too many marketers make the fatal mistake of taking that customer for granted. Post sales service is a crunch time for cementing the Trust you have managed to win with such effort. Make sure you stay in touch with your new customer. Offer them advice and help in the use of their new product or service. Make sure any potential issues are dealt with before they escalate. Be available and within easy contact for your customers and prospects.

Relevant Resources
http://www.simplyeasier.com/me.html

Conclusion
As a direct marketer you can buy traffic, you can buy O’pt-In list members, you can make or buy products and you can even borrow Cash. You cannot manufacture or in any way manipulate trust – Trust is the one thing in your business that must be earned the Hard Way. Be sincere, do the right things as shown here and build trust with your prospects.

Author Bio:
Charles Kangethe of http://www.simplyeasier.com is a leading new wave Netpreneur and a published author from England. The “Simply Easier” brand name is your guarantee of high value, quality Marketing Products, Services and Resources.

Six Keys to Creating a Successful and Profitable Ezine
Fortunes are made on the Internet by people who have built solid mailing lists for the promotion of their online businesses. But the question many publishers face is how to turn their ezine subscribers into buyers?

Let me be honest with you. Your mailing list is only as valuable as your subscriber’s willingness to purchase your products and services, or the products and services of your advertisers.

Until your subscribers begin to buy what you offer, your mailing list is not worth a plug nickel!

Here are the six ingredients that you need for creating a successful and profitable ezine:

Advertising Your Ezine
* While often expensive, paid brokers can actually get readers to subscribe to your ezine. Yet, in my own personal experience, buying subscribers did put a large number of email addresses on my list, but it provided no value to my list since most subscribers never read my web-based ezine.

* One ezine advertising program that I have used in the past to great success is List Partners which permits you to set up an free affiliate program to permit others to advertise your ezine in exchange for free advertising or cash. http://www.listpartners.com

* I have generated some very solid advertising results using Publisher Ad Swaps.

By setting up private advertising arrangements with other ezine publishers, you can get your advertisement in another ezine in exchange for an advertisement in your ezine.

To locate like-minded publishers seeking beneficial ad swaps, there is a moderated discussion group dedicated to this task called the Ezine Publishers Swap Meet:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/publishers_swap_meet/

* Paid Search Engine placement can be another solid method for attracting new subscribers to your ezine.

* For more help in promoting your ezine, check out “How to Publicize Your E-Zine” at:
http://www.zinebook.com/publicz.html

Develop A Standardized Template For Your Ezine
Your readers want a specific structure for your ezine. They want to be able to learn your structure and to be able to quickly follow your structure to get to the meat and potatoes of every issue. Your readers are pressed for time in the same way that you are, so they want you to enable them to get what they want from you in a quick and orderly fashion.

Provide Exceptional And Targeted Content
When you develop your ezine, you know in principle what type of content that you want to bring to your readers.

But, unless you have the financial ability to work your ezine on a full-time basis, finding the time to create all of your own content is a challenge that every publisher faces.

Fortunately, there are writers who have the time to create the content you can use, and they make their content available for publication so long as their terms of reprint are honored.

These writers cover a wide range of subject materials that enable publishers in nearly every genre find a ready supply of content that they can include in their publications.

To learn how you can find articles that can be used for reprint in your publication, you should explore the following resources:

Niche Content Finder
http://www.freewebs.com/niche-content/

The Article Depot
http://articledepot.50megs.com/

The Phantom Writers Articles Archive
http://thephantomwriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml

Free-Reprint Article and Content Providers Webring
http://b.webring.com/hub?ring=contentproviders

Personalize And Brand Your Ezine
In order to separate your ezine from the thousands of other online magazines, you must create a solid brand for your ezine.

What I mean by this is that you should always strive to make your ezine stand well above the crowd and to give your ezine its own personal identity. You want your ezine to be the one that your subscribers will read religiously and intently.

The way to develop an identity for your ezine, separate from your competitors, is to inject a touch of yourself into every issue. Talk to your readers as if you are talking to a friend or colleague. Your publishing competitors cannot duplicate your personality or your own personal take on life itself. Your personality is the primary ingredient that will help you to develop a solid ezine brand that your readers can trust.

Create Reader Interaction
The greatest challenge in publishing an ezine is ALWAYS getting your subscribers to read your ezine.

One method for doing this is to develop reader interaction.

The one ezine that I know that has done the best job of this is Your Membership Exchange:
http://www.your-membership.com

In this ezine, readers submit questions, and other readers answer the questions. Their unique selling proposition is “Newsletters for Our Members, By Our Members.”

In each issue, a new question is posted, and then the publisher takes the best answers to a previous question and publishes them in the ezine. I read this one every day.

In my ezine, I had accomplished a strong level of interaction with my readers by running a contest. In every issue, I posed a brain teaser question and published the names of the first three people who in the previous issue got the answer right.

Ask For The Sale
I mention this only because I know someone who is making this mistake right now. I am sure a lot of other publishers are making this mistake as well.

Many people begin the process of publishing an ezine for the explicit purpose of selling their own wares. They follow the advice of the guru’s about developing a mailing list and publishing their ezine on a regular basis. A lot of work is put into the ezine to develop a loyal base of subscribers who read each and every issue delivered.

And when all is said and done, the publisher fails to ask their readers to purchase the wares that their e-zine was designed to promote. How does one actually expect their readers to buy their wares if they do not ask their readers to buy what is being offered?

You are the expert in charge of your publication, so you should not be afraid to ask your readers the hard questions. You must explain to your readers what you are selling, and you must ask your readers to actually purchase what you are selling! Don’t be afraid of offending your readers. Take care to do what is necessary to help your ezine to generate the profits it was designed to create.

Author Bio:
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,000+ publishers & webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you.

To Optimize Or Not To Optimize
Excessive optimization could be considered a sickness depending on context. Look up compulsive disorders in the Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and over-optimization fits the description fairly well. So, should most online home business owners be seen by a psychotherapist? Well, I won’t answer that as of now since it doesn’t bode well for my immediate physical health. But one thing is for sure: web site optimization is tricky business.

The search engines are in an all out war to be the best. Since content is king, they are all striving to develop the all around best algorithm to deliver the most relevant search results. They are thus in a constant state of flux, which in turn wreaks havoc on our nerves as online home business owners.

You see, search engines are one of the best forms of free traffic. And we all know that to run a successful online business, traffic is a must. Most home based web businesses start out on very restrictive budgets. I know mine did, and still is. So, when the toss up is time or money, I, like many others probably do, chose to work with time.

In walks optimization. You must be on your toes to stay ahead of the every changing SEs. You must periodically evaluate your site’s content to ensure that you aren’t bumped to low indexes. But this can easily get carried away into what I like to call over-optimization, and then you probably should consult the DSM-V.

Traffic is important. There is no doubt about it. But there must be a balance. So the ultimate question is not whether you should or shouldn’t optimize, but how much time you should spend on it in terms of other site promotion methodologies.

Try to divide your time. In the beginning I focused heavily on search engine optimization. Slowly, after several months of realizing that the process never ends,(I too consulted the DSM-V and had Freud give me a swift kick in the tushy.) my focus began to shift to a host of promotion techniques. Here is a short list of some of the primary traffic generators I work with.

(1) Writing articles, such as this one, to share my experiences with others and of course provide a link to my site at the end. Guess what? If someone picks it up and decides to publish any of my articles on their site, I get bonus points from the search engines. Why? Reciprocal linking of course. The link shows that someone else values my site, and as a result my ranking increases.

(2) E-Zine advertising, whether it be free classified ads which a host of publishers will offer their subscribers, or full blown paid solo ads, is a great traffic generator. You know that the people who visit your site through an ad were looking for something that you offer. Now that’s targeted traffic!

(3) Traffic exchanges can also bring in targeted traffic. Many of these have the option of free or paid memberships. As of now I have focused on the free aspect (Remember, I love low, or no cost advertising). All that is required is for you to do a bit of surfing to have your short ad show up on other sites across the internet. TrafficSwarm and ClickMatrix are two of the best I have come across. They allow you to target your ad to ensure that the people who click are serious about checking out your site. You can sign up for free accounts to both of these at http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?224700, and http://www.clicksmatrix.com/index.php?ref=ekinetic.

(4) Pay-per-click can also drive targeted traffic. The thing I don’t care for is that the cost can easily get out of hand, if you don’t continuously evaluate your click through rates on a daily basis. Soon your back to focusing on pay-per-click and re-consulting with the DSM-V :).

Ultimately, you want to incorporate a handful of techniques that you find work for your particular home based web business. I nor anyone else can guarantee what works. It takes testing on your behalf. But, and this is important, the testing phase is educational and forces you to stay focused on methods that work. So try the inexpensive traffic builders first. Find out what works for you. Then expand your arsenal. Most of all, be patient and success will come!

To Optimize Or Not To Optimize
Excessive optimization could be considered a sickness depending on context. Look up compulsive disorders in the Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and over-optimization fits the description fairly well. So, should most online home business owners be seen by a psychotherapist? Well, I won’t answer that as of now since it doesn’t bode well for my immediate physical health. But one thing is for sure: web site optimization is tricky business.

The search engines are in an all out war to be the best. Since content is king, they are all striving to develop the all around best algorithm to deliver the most relevant search results. They are thus in a constant state of flux, which in turn wreaks havoc on our nerves as online home business owners.

You see, search engines are one of the best forms of free traffic. And we all know that to run a successful online business, traffic is a must. Most home based web businesses start out on very restrictive budgets. I know mine did, and still is. So, when the toss up is time or money, I, like many others probably do, chose to work with time.

In walks optimization. You must be on your toes to stay ahead of the every changing SEs. You must periodically evaluate your site’s content to ensure that you aren’t bumped to low indexes. But this can easily get carried away into what I like to call over-optimization, and then you probably should consult the DSM-V.

Traffic is important. There is no doubt about it. But there must be a balance. So the ultimate question is not whether you should or shouldn’t optimize, but how much time you should spend on it in terms of other site promotion methodologies.

Try to divide your time. In the beginning I focused heavily on search engine optimization. Slowly, after several months of realizing that the process never ends,(I too consulted the DSM-V and had Freud give me a swift kick in the tushy.) my focus began to shift to a host of promotion techniques. Here is a short list of some of the primary traffic generators I work with.

(1) Writing articles, such as this one, to share my experiences with others and of course provide a link to my site at the end. Guess what? If someone picks it up and decides to publish any of my articles on their site, I get bonus points from the search engines. Why? Reciprocal linking of course. The link shows that someone else values my site, and as a result my ranking increases.

(2) E-Zine advertising, whether it be free classified ads which a host of publishers will offer their subscribers, or full blown paid solo ads, is a great traffic generator. You know that the people who visit your site through an ad were looking for something that you offer. Now that’s targeted traffic!

(3) Traffic exchanges can also bring in targeted traffic. Many of these have the option of free or paid memberships. As of now I have focused on the free aspect (Remember, I love low, or no cost advertising). All that is required is for you to do a bit of surfing to have your short ad show up on other sites across the internet. TrafficSwarm and ClickMatrix are two of the best I have come across. They allow you to target your ad to ensure that the people who click are serious about checking out your site. You can sign up for free accounts to both of these at http://www.trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?224700, and http://www.clicksmatrix.com/index.php?ref=ekinetic.

(4) Pay-per-click can also drive targeted traffic. The thing I don’t care for is that the cost can easily get out of hand, if you don’t continuously evaluate your click through rates on a daily basis. Soon your back to focusing on pay-per-click and re-consulting with the DSM-V :).

Ultimately, you want to incorporate a handful of techniques that you find work for your particular home based web business. I nor anyone else can guarantee what works. It takes testing on your behalf. But, and this is important, the testing phase is educational and forces you to stay focused on methods that work. So try the inexpensive traffic builders first. Find out what works for you. Then expand your arsenal. Most of all, be patient and success will come!

Color Psychology in Marketing
On the internet we don’t deal with face to face selling. The internet is a visual and psychological medium. The words, or sales copy, on your website have by far the greatest psychological impact on your visitors and thus becomes your most important communication and sales tool.

Another important psychological aspect of your website that is often overlooked are the colors. Yes, that’s right… I said colors. Just as you use words to express yourself, colors can be used as an expression as well and are a language all on their own.

Author Name: Al Martinovic
Company: MilleniumMarketers.com

Author Bio:
Al Martinovic works from home and runs a successful mlm business at http://www.ineedsmokes.com and also publishes a popular internet marketing newsletter: http://www.milleniummarketers.com
The background color of your website, the color of your header, the color of your text, headlines and sub-headlines etc. can all have a psychological impact on your visitors. Here is a list of some of the common colors and what type of psychological emotion they invoke in people:

RED is associated with love, passion, danger, warning, excitement, food, impulse, action, adventure.

BLUE is associated with trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, professionalism.

GREEN is associated with money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony.

ORANGE is associated with comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, affordability.

PURPLE is associated with royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams.

WHITE is associated with innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity.

YELLOW is associated with curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement.

PINK is associated with softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness.

BROWN is associated with earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity.

GREY is associated with neutralality, indifference, reserved.

BLACK is associated with seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy.

You can use the above as a guide when choosing colors for your website. It really boils down to your target audience and what psychological message you want to convey in colors.

Blues and white backgrounds work best for business sites. Maternity sites should consider some pink. Golf or lawn sites sites should consider green. Food sites should consider red, etc.

There are also numerous shades of the same color that you can use too. Here a link that lists 216 colors that work in all browsers:
http://www.geocities.com/webtvbeth/hexchart.html

It also boils down to common sense too. As far as using colors in text, black text on white backgrounds may be dull but it is the most readable and pleasing to the eye.

Yellow text on white background is not only unreadable, but causes eye-strain which will have people leaving your site quickly. Nothing will lose sales faster than eye-straining text.

Here’s a link for a “color wheel” that shows which colors compliment each other, and which ones don’t:
http://www.saumag.edu/art/studio/chalkboard/c-wheel.html

In conclusion, not only can the sales copy on your website have a psychological impact with words but the colors you use can as well.

Use them wisely…

Are Your Words Attracting Clients?
I’ve always found that one of the easiest, most cost-effective, and productive ways to build a business is to magnetize yourself. Think of the magnets you see in your everyday life. They’re strong, aren’t they? They have pulling power, don’t they? They have the ability to keep things attached, don’t they? That’s the beauty of attraction marketing, too, with you being the magnet that draws people to you.

So, how do you magnetize yourself? By letting people get a “taste” of you. Why? Because when they’re ready to contact you, they already know who you are and what you can do for them.

It saves a lot of time and brings you clients who want to work with you instead of prospects who want you to convince them to deal with you. That’s a subtle, but very important distinction.

Many potential clients will want to “experience” you anonymously before they’re prepared to enter into a conversation with you. Your job is to make that as easy as possible for them, and one of the best ways to do that it to put your thoughts in writing and make sure your writing is seen by as many potential clients as possible.

What should you write and how do you get your words to “attract” qualified clients to you? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Write an e-mail newsletter in your area of expertise that lets people see who you are and what you can do for them. I have been sending this newsletter out for six years and have received business from readers all over the world. Writing an e-zine has helped me build my business and it can easily help you build yours, too.

2. Leverage your efforts by sending your articles to mailing lists that cater to publishers looking for content. (You’ll need to become members of the list in order to submit your articles, but the exposure you get is well worth the added e-mails you’ll receive.)

Here are a few to get you started:

aageneral@yahoogroups.com
Free-Content@yahoogroups.com
article_announce@yahoogroups.com
ArticlePublisher@yahoogroups.com
aabusiness@yahoogroups.com
I_Need_Content@yahoogroups.com
articlesubmission@yahoogroups.com
QC_Reprint_Articles@yahoogroups.com

Remember to include a resource box with your contact information at the end. Your copyright notice at the end of the article is a must, too. Before you know it, your articles will be appearing in newsletters and on Web sites around the world.

3. Write a compelling signature file for all your e-mails. The signature file is what you see after someone’s name in an e-mail. It is not meant to be a blatant advertisement, but rather a quick intro of who you are and the benefits you offer. Make sure you include your web site and contact information. Keep it to six to eight lines. Any more than that is considered very poor netiquette.

4. Write letters to the editor. Let the members of your community see where you stand on matters of local or business interest. Sign your name and your business name if your comments are business related. This will go a long way in creating visibility for yourself in your community.

5. Express yourself in a handwritten note. Anybody can use e-mail. Someone who takes the time to sit down and write a note the old fashioned way really stands out from the crowd. “Thank you, “congratulations,” “nice meeting you,” “loved your presentation” are all great openers.

6. Post to discussion lists where your target market is active. Offer helpful suggestions to your list mates. Build credibility for yourself by offering help and expecting nothing in return. You’ll quickly build a reputation as someone in the know.

7. Become the newsletter editor of your Chamber of Commerce, Women’s group or professional association. This will keep your name in front of the membership on a regular basis. Looking for newsworthy articles to write about members’ businesses will give you a perfect reason to stay in touch. Doing so allows you to build both name recognition and relationships.

8. Write a regular column for a trade magazine that caters to your target market. You HAVE identified your target market haven’t you?

9. Send press releases any chance you get. Launching a new business? Send a press release. Adding a new service? Send a press release! Sponsoring a contest? Send a press release! Delivering a workshop? Send a press release! How do you think newspapers get their information? From press releases! Whom do you think they interview? People who send press releases!

10. Give written testimonials. Yes, you read that right. GIVE testimonials. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll get back.

Your written words are constantly being recycled and seen by fresh eyes every day.

If someone likes an article they’ve seen in a newsletter, they’ll hit their e-mail “Forward” button. If they see something in the local newspaper that strikes a chord with them, they’ll cut out the article and mail it to a friend.

Your testimonial on someone’s Web page will be seen by thousands. Notes get passed around by proud recipients. Magazines sit in doctor’s offices forever.

Get the picture?

Ready? Set? Write!

Author Bio:
Leni Chauvin is the creator of the popular “Attract Clients Galore Program” for entrepreneurs and independent professionals who want to attract more (and better) clients, make more money, and have more fun while they’re doing it. She is a certified Professional Coach and Business Building Specialist who has helped thousands of ordinary people build extraordinary businesses. Info and newsletter at  http://www.superstarnetworking.com