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Five New Communication Technologies to Supplement Email

2006-11-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Every business relies on effective communication with its customers. Communication doesn't just convey information, it inspires trust, builds credibility, stimulates involvement and generates loyalty. But in today's global, hi-tech, rapidly changing business environment, how do you ensure you're communicating effectively?

The Benchmark - Face-To-Face

There's no doubt that face-to-face communication is the most effective method for most people. Why? Because of its two-way nature. It's about dialogue. Listeners are not passive participants. When someone talks to us, we send a continuous stream of responses back to them. Some are verbal, but many/most are not. These responses have the power to actually change the message being disseminated by the talker. What's more, they have the power to change how other listeners' interpret that message. (Similarly, other listeners have the power to change your interpretation.)

Unfortunately, however, the global nature of business makes it impossible to conduct face-to-face meetings for every communication. So what are the alternatives? Specifically, what are the alternatives offered by technology?

Email - The Starting Point

The benefits of email are numerous and well known, and include (but are not limited to):

* Email is an excellent mechanism for distributing information to people. It is fast and cost effective.
* It is incredibly convenient - you can readily communicate across time zones.
* It provides a useful electronic paper trail.
* It can save a great deal of time because most of the fluff surrounding a telephone call (the social niceties) are seen as unnecessary in email.
* It allows recipients to read and respond to messages in their own time.
* The wording, grammar and punctuation in an email can be considered and edited before finally sending.

But email does have its limitations:

* Its lack of social niceties is a double-edged sword. Without the benefit of other communication cues, it's sometimes hard to interpret the tone of an email, and this can make some messages ambiguous.

* It isn't ideal for critical communication. For many people, emails are not 'real-time' communication. We all have that unaddressed email sitting at the bottom of the list. Because emails are so easy to ignore, they're also easy to forget.

* Ironically, email's dissemination effectiveness has been one of the major impediments to its communication effectiveness. It's so easy to send emails - and they're so anonymous - that our inboxes are now flooded with Sp@m. Consequently, emails are viewed with some suspicion. It's sometimes hard to identify legitimate emails, but it's very easy to just hit Delete.

* Because email senders are typically geographically (and often culturally) distant from their recipients, they have no immediate visual and aural cues to help them tailor the message as they type.

But there's no need to 'throw out the baby with the bathwater'. Email is an excellent solution to many communication needs. And for those it is ill-equipped to handle, there are newer, more appropriate technologies that are built for the job...

Web 2.0 Technologies - The Perfect Supplement

Web 2.0, a term coined by O'Reilly Media (an American media company) in 2004 refers to a second-generation of internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in new ways.

Web 2.0 technologies are well defined in www.wikipaedia.org, which suggests that these sites allow the users of the sites (members) to create and share content, including exploring and discussing ideas, opinions, initiatives and issues. Web 2.0 is all about communication. It is the evolution of the internet from an endless library of static pages to an endless world of conversations. These pages can be restricted to particular individuals (eg the executive), or open to all members. The only difference is that the interaction takes place in cyberspace, and those taking part can be sitting behind a keyboard just about anywhere on the planet.

Importantly, a reader's understanding of the message in a Web 2.0 communication is determined, not just by the publisher, but also by the responses (e.g. comments) of the audience. What's more, the publisher's actual message tends to be far more fluid as it, too, is informed by the responses of the audience. In other words, Web 2.0 services are far more like face-to-face conversations than any communication technology before them.

So what are these emerging technologies that we should be keeping an eye on? The two most notable are 'Wikis' and 'Blogs'. The following definitions are from wikipedia.org, an online encyclopaedia developed as a wiki.

* Wikis - A wiki is a type of website that allows users to easily add, remove or otherwise edit and change content. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. Examples include Wikipedia and wikiwikiweb.

* Blogs - A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of online diary or journal which allows one to voice their opinion on something. Blogs often provide commentary or news and information on a particular subject. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media. Blogs are usually text based, but they can include photographs, videos or audio (podcasting). Blogs can be presented in a way that creates a conversation between users. As an example, see the Sydney Morning Herald travel blog.

The Uses Of Web 2.0

As with face-to-face social gatherings and forums, online get togethers attract a broad spectrum of participants eager to engage, entertain, befriend, advise and lecture.

It was reported in The Australian (Tuesday 8 August 2006) that the social computing element of Web 2.0 has recently been embraced by the US Government. The US State Department has started including blogs and other Web 2.0 concepts to deliver public information to citizens. It is also using wiki style services to improve information by permitting small expert communities to improve advisory services.

The same article advised that Australia�s leading information advisory body, the Australian Government Information Management Office, had begun experimenting with the use of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 technologies.

As new online social networks mushroom, they are becoming increasingly focused on niches, ideally suited to membership based organizations and the NFP sector. Examples of general public social networks include My Space, Classmates and Bikely.

Other Useful Technologies

* SMS - Short Message Service (SMS) is a service available on most digital mobile phones (and other mobile devices, e.g. a Pocket PC, or occasionally even desktop computers) that permits the sending of short messages between mobile phones, other handheld devices and even landline telephones.

* Podcast - Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.

* Webinars - Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the internet. In the early years of the internet, the terms "web conferencing" and "computer conferencing" were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board". A webinar is a seminar which is conducted over the World Wide Web. It is a type of web conferencing. In contrast to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is 'live' in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with a starting and ending time. In most cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speakerphone. Whilst not necessarily considered Web 2.0, Webinars can also be a useful mechanism for information distribution and discussion amongst membership based organizations and SMS can provide important or urgent confirmations.

Conclusion

Email is - and will continue to be - an incredibly useful and convenient communication tool. In fact, with the emergence of new technologies that are either more direct, more immediate, or more like face-to-face communication, email is improved. As businesses supplement their email usage with other communication technologies, email will be increasingly reserved for those communications to which it is ideally suited.

About The Author
Gerald is GM, Salës & Marketing of Software Design Group (SDG): Website Development, Design, Search Engine Optimisation, Network Support, Outsourcing Solutions, Help Desk Support, Application Development, Hardware & Software Salës. Gerald.chait@sdgtechnology.com.au

2006-10-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the "geniuses" of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as "adsense text", and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

7 Online Marketing Tools for the Smart Webmaster

2006-10-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

As an online marketer, it's hard to wade through all of the misleading information that is running rampant on the Internet. Who do you trust? Where do you go for the very best information in online marketing? Well, this article was written to answer those very questíons. Below I have outlined 7 tools that can be used to increase your marketing knowledge, improve your website, increase your website's traffíc, and even save time. Hope you enjoy!

1. Make Your Site Sell

The first of these tools comes from Ken Envoy, who has released his bestselling internet marketing book to the public. With 100,000+ copies sold, Make Your Site Sell! 2002 can now be downloaded frëe of charge.This internet marketing bible has timeless information to improve your online business and increase your traffíc. Because it was created in 2002, some of the information is a bit dated, but if you skip the search engine info, Envoy's book is a gem from front to back.

This is the book that got me started in internet marketing and I am forever thankful to Ken Envoy. Inside Make Your Site Sell, you'll find the three cornerstones of building a successful online business - developing a great product, building a site that sells, and attracting targeted traffíc to your site.

Find it at SiteSell.com.
2. Dotcomology

Another great resource for learning about online marketing is Dotcomology by Stone Evans. This one is a bit more up-to-date.

Inside you'll learn:

* How to increase your traffíc using expired domains
* How to build and maintain your credibility online
* How to increase your profíts using back-end and cross-selling techniques
* How to optimize your site for high rankings in the search engines
* How to profít with Google Adwords
* How to build a massive opt-ín mailing list
* How to set up joint ventures to expand your marketing reach for frëe
* How to use press releases for frëe publicity and....
* How to launch a viral marketing campaign

In addition, you'll also get a number of frëe tools for all of your webmaster needs.

Download this book for frëe at http://www.dotcomology.com

3. Website Translation

Do you know how you can multiply your content by 9 times by expending just a few minutes of your time? Simply translate your website into 9 other languages. There are tools out there that make the process quick and easy.

You don't have to worry about duplicate content issues either. It's all unique content that the search engines love. More content equals more traffíc. 64.8% of the world is surfing the Internet in a language other than English. By translating your website into other languages, you immediately open up a stream of new markets and increased traffíc from foreign search engines.

If you are a seasoned SEO, you'll be happy to hear that the competition in foreign language search engines is much less than in the English search engines. There are a number of tools available that will enable you to translate your website.

The first one is a Wordpress plugin called Simple Thoughts. This plugin uses automatic machine translation to translate your blog into eight languages - Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

You can download this plugin at:

http://blog.taragana.com

4. OnlyWire

Social bookmarking is a great way to increase the exposure to your articles. However, it can also be quite time consuming.

Fortunately, there is a tool that will automate much of your social bookmarking for you. It is called OnlyWire and it allows you to submit links to 17 social bookmarking sites all at one time. Simply create an account, give your bookmark a title, type in the URL, add tags, and send it off.

When using this tool, you must keep in mind that it is not meant to be abused. This tool is simply a time-saving device to help you in your social bookmarking efforts.

You must always submit quality content. In addition, you should also share and submit other sites that you feel would provide a great resource to these communities.

Social bookmarking is all about community. If you are not actively involved in the community and submitting links besides your own, then you are simply wasting your time.

However, if you spend a little bit of time to do things right, you can reap some enormous benefits.

To find out more about OnlyWire, go to http://www.onlywire.com.

5. ROR Sitemaps

Sitemaps are an important tool for making sure your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search engines. Unfortunately, many of today's sitemaps are specific to one search engine or another. Because of this, there have been a number of Google and Yahoo sitemap generators produced in recent years.

However, there is an alternative that presents many benefits over today's Google and Yahoo sitemaps. In addition, these new and improved sitemaps are readable by all search engines.

They are called ROR sitemaps. They use XML feeds to describe your web content. These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts, and anything else that you want to describe.

You can create your own ROR sitemap at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com.

6. Web Templates

If you are a webmaster, then you know the importance of quality web design. Good web design can mean the difference between a paying customer and a confused visitor.

Fortunately, there are a few websites that are providing frëe, quality templates. One of these can be found at Open Source Web Design, where they offer over 1,600 web designs.

Open Source Web Design is making the web a prettier place, one template at a time. To find a professional template for your own site, you can look over some of their favorite designs at http://www.oswd.org/designs/favorites/.

If you are looking for a nice blog design, you can go to http://themes.wordpress.net, where you'll find over 800 themes, frëe to download.

7. Viral Marketing - PDF Generator

To start your own viral marketing campaign, I suggest that you look at Viral Publisher. This frëe software allows you to create your own brandable PDF ebooks and optimize them for the web. Creating your own ebook and giving it away for frëe is a great way to increase your online exposure.

You can offer your ebook to your affiliates, website visitors, and your customers.

Because it's brandable, the user can customize the ebook with their own affilíate links, encouraging them to pass it along even further.

Start your own viral frenzy at http://www.viralpublisher.com.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog. Kim's email is: kim @ seo-news.com

Directory Submission And Its Benefits For Online Marketing

2006-10-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

What Are Directories?

A directory is a collection of information pertaining to various websites. This information is hand picked and chosen by directory editors and website inclusion is dependent on the quality and relevance of each particular site. Directories are divided into categories and, in most cases, subcategories; each contains links to relevant websites. Once information has been collected and collated it is then searched by human visitors. The major search engines use directories to help determine relevance. As well, a listing in a directory may count as a link to the listed websites.

There are a very large number of directories on the Internet, and while some are multiple or general category directories there are also a large number of topic specific directories available. Submitting to directories has long been considered a powerful online promotion tool for several reasons.

Directory Submission And Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is often considered to be the most important and beneficial form of marketing a website. By optimizing the pages of a website and other, off page factors, it is possible to influence the positioning of your website in the search engine result pages. One of the major off page factors that contribute to your site's performance in the search engine results is your inbound link popularity and the quality of those links.

Search engines deem links from quality directories to be very beneficial links. The manual process by which a website is chosen gives an indication that your site is both good quality and relevant to the given category. The major search engines look very highly on quality directories and give a link from one of these directories a lot of weight when determining how well your site will perform. At the very least, quality directories are indexed regularly by the major search engines, giving you a powerful way to ensure that your new website is indexed quickly by search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Directory Submission And Direct Traffic

Of course SEO isn't the only method of online promotion that pays dividends. Directories are popular with surfers because of the structured and easy to navigate fashion that they arrange their results. As well as being able to navigate through the categories, many directories also include a keyword search function for added ease. Getting a prominent listing in a popular directory can directly generate reasonable amounts of targeted traffic straight to your site.

Choosing The Appropriate Directories For Your Site

One of the most difficult aspects of submitting any website to online directories is choosing the most effective ones. There are a large number of directories but while some offer the advantage of being heavily populated and considered search engine friendly, others cannot boast the same advantages.

In terms of search engine promotion, the most beneficial of all directories to submit to is the Open Directory Project, also called the ODP or DMOZ and located at http://www.dmoz.org. Several major search engines quickly pick up new listings from the Open Directory Project even though your site may not receive much in the way of direct traffic. The Yahoo directory, located at http://dir.yahoo.com/, is also very popular and used by search engines other than Yahoo. If you have a B2B website, you should also submit to http://www.business.com/.

After that you should turn to submitting your website to smaller general directories. It is best to start by submitting to the best directories you can. You can find an independent and objective ranking of directories at: http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/

It is a good idea to start at the top of the list and work your way down.

The next step in making directory is to look for directories that concentrate on, or around, the topic of your site. A quick search on any search engine will give page after page of directories to choose from and, as a general rule, those that appear at the top of the listings will be the more popular.

Check Your Site Before You Submit

Before you submit to any directory always ensure that your website is complete and easy to navigate. Don't forget that directories, unlike search engines, use human eyes to view your website. It absolutely must be appealing and clean for human visitors and should be directly related to the topic under which you are submitting. Check for broken links and ensure that information is factually correct and easy to read.

Submitting

Once you've checked your website, find the directories you will submit to. Every directory has a "Submit Resource" link or something similar. Some directories will require you to first navigate to the bottom level category that is most relevant to your content. This means you should be as specific as possible when choosing the category.

An Accurate Submission Is More Likely To Be A Successful Submission

In the case of this page, we should submit to something along the lines of "Business - Internet Business - Internet Marketing - Directory Submission" and not to the "Internet Business" or even "Internet Marketing" category. The more specific you are, the more likely it is that your site will be accepted. You will need to complete the submission form, which will require simple details regarding you and your site. The final step is to wait for an editor to assess your site.

Is Directory Submission Beneficial For You?

Directory submission is by no means a new Internet marketing trick but it is still a widely viable one that can help to get a site indexed by search engines, drive traffic directly to your site, and increase your performance on search engine listings. Try to find the most relevant directories and always ensure that your site is ready for inclusion. Also make sure that you submit to the appropriate category.

About the Author

Aviva recommends that you promote your website by submitting it to Aviva Directory

Permalinks For Boosting SEO

2006-10-13T19:22:00.000-07:00

Blogs, shortened form of weblogs, are the current rage in online publishing. You might not have a blog, but surely you've read or heard about them. Blogs allow millions of people to share their ideas, interests and products. Blogs have become a powerful way of sharing information on any subject thus, creating a more connected and socially aware global community. Like a typical website, a blog needs visitors to ensure its success. Search engines are a main source of readers. The use of search engine optimization is an effective way to drive traffic to a blog. It is important that a blog is optimized for high rankings because high ranking equals online traffic. In this regard, permalinks can help bring significant traffic to a blog.

About Permalinks

A blog is essentially a website consisting of posts or entries arranged in chronological order with the most current post appearing first in the home page. A blog usually consists of the title (headline of the post), post date, body or content, comments added by readers, permalink and category or tag (subject that the post discusses). A permalink indicates the URL (identifier for a document on the internet) which points to a specific blog post. A permalink is what a fellow blogger will use to refer to another blogger's post. It is used to link to other individual postings. A permalink is usually designated by text link or a symbol. The most common symbol used is the hash sigh (#). Certain blogs use their own symbols such as an asterisk, a dash or a hyphen. A permalink may consist of a string of characters which represent the date of posting, an identifier (domain name) which indicate the author who wrote the item and the post name or title.

A permalink or a permanent link is still available even after the post has been moved from the home page and into the blog archive. Permalinks are permanent. They remain unchanged hence the "perma" in the name. If a post is altered or moved within the database, its permalink remains unchanged.

Permalinks are setup to display in various formats. Different blogging softwares have their own format for permalink URLs. A few examples are:

* Movable Type and Typepad - http://.typepad.com////.htm/ * WordPress - http://///// * LiveJournal and Bloglines - http://.livejournal.com/.html

However, some blogging softwares like WordPress give the bloggers the options of customizing the permalinks for better search engine optimization.

About Search Engine Optimization

How can you get people to visit your blog when you are competing with tens of thousands of blogs around the world and a typical web surfer rarely reads beyond the first few results of a search query? This is where search engine optimization comes into play. Search engine optimization or SEO is the art of using keywords or key phrases, good and clean codes, well-written content, link popularity and careful organization to maintain a blog as close as possible to the top search result position for a given keyword or key phrases in search engines or directories.

Online traffic for a blog is achieved through search engines. If your blog does not appear in the top 20 search engine result positions, the chances of a web surfer clicking on your listing or actually visiting your blog is low. SEO tries to help organize your blog so that it will move up the search engine results and thus be read or found.

Permalink Optimization Tips

Search engines have their own respective algorithms that will determine which blog should appear on top of a search result. The top three search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN use different factors to determine a blog's relevance to the search terms. As a result, a blog may come out on top of one search engine's hit list but may not necessarily be in the top ten of another search engine. Nevertheless, there are certain things that many top search engines have in common. So you can actually do certain things that will help boost your rankings for these search engines.

For instance, a permalink is essential to a successful; blog. In WordPress, a blogging software, you can manipulate how your permalink looks as this have an important effect on your blog's SEO. WordPress's default Permalink setup looks something like this - http://www.domainname.com/index.php?=2. A look at this URL says nothing about the permalink in such a way that it makes sense. It will be much easier to know what the post is if the title of the post or part of it is in the permalink. Internet users will not have to think twice whether they are linking to the right post. Your post will appear more attractive to search engines for the key words used in the permalink.

If you change your permalink structure to include the post name or post title, this will become part of the URL. If you use keywords which you want your blog to be found by in the post title, the chances of your blog being found by web surfers who search for those particular keywords are strong. Just like any normal website search engine marketing, use of appropriate keywords is significant to high ranking. Effective use of popular keywords in the title which appears in the permalink definitely helps.

Permalinks promote website browsing. A glance at a link to a permalinked blog, the web surfer will know how recent the post is and its title. A surfer can then easily disseminate word about a particular post. Since the post title is within the permalink itself, search engines will pick up the link faster and place the link in higher search engine ranking.

It is important that your permalink does not contain a lot of variables. It should be search engine friendly, meaning it can be easily spidered by search engine crawlers. A search engine friendly permalink avoids the use of too many symbols such as ?, = and & because these make the permalink difficult for a search engine to index. It should be emphasized that a search engine friendly permalink includes the post name or post title. Inclusion of the post name or title makes the blog post easier for search engine to index and therefore easier to find.

In a nutshell, to achieve permalink optimization, use more keywords and remove the useless tags to make the URL search engine friendly and people attractive. Include the post name and do away with symbols, post id because these make it harder to see the URL's keywords. Use a neat and concise permalink that describe your post. Here are two well-structured permalinks:

* http://www.seowordpress.com/2006/06/26/permalink-optimization/ * http://www,seowordpress.com/permalink-optimization

Give these permalink optimization tips a try and watch them boost your blog's search engine ranking.

Creating Your Online Radio Station

2006-10-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Podcasting has leveled the playing field for people around the world. With just a few tools, you can quickly and easily set up your own talk show on the topic of your choice. All you need is a computer, a microphone, and a passion to share your knowledge with others. Whether you are a sports buff, a political guru, a part-time comedian, or a fitness professional, there is an audience waiting for your voice on the Internet.

As an online marketer, podcasting allows you to step into a market that is largely untapped. However, please don't take it for granted. A quality podcast can garner the attention of thousands of listeners.

By now you may be wondering how podcasting is different from radio. I am delighted to tell you that podcasting stands head and shoulders above radio by eliminating the many barriers found in traditional radio.

For example, through podcasting, any person with an MP3 player can choose from a huge number of talk shows and music varieties. One of the biggest differences is that they can listen to the content on their own schedule. It's like the Tivo for radio. In addition, as a podcaster, you don't have to worry about the FCC rules and regulatíons of radio. Simply plug in your microphone and go to town.

Podcasting is primed for growth, with many big names already entering the arena. Here are just a few of the voices you might be familiar with who are involved in the podcasting revolution.

Business Week
Wall Street Journal
RealMoney Radio with Jim Cramer
Rich Dad Podcast by Robert Kiyosaki

Even colleges are getting involved. Duke Universíty gives all incoming freshmen an iPod preloaded with Duke-related content such as information about orientation and the academic calendar.

There is an unlímited variety of what you could do with your podcast. Whether you want to do expert interviews, tutorials, news broadcasting, sports commentary, or coaching and consulting, podcasting is an excellent platform for your marketing message.

Best of all, podcasting is simple enough for anyone to get involved. Here are the 5 basic steps to creating your own podcast.

1. Get the right equipment.
2. Produce and save your podcast.
3. Create an RSS feed.
4. Upload your podcast to your website.
5. Publicize your podcast.

So, let's dig in. If you want to create a quality radio station, you'll need some quality equipment. Although the built-in microphone in your computer will work, for better quality, you'll want to invest in a good microphone. I would suggest the following:

Audio Technica 3035 Microphone
If you're looking for something more portable, chëck out the Edirol R-9.

As far as software goes, Audacity is a great audio editor and recorder that you can download for frëe at http://audacity.sourceforge.net. Using this software you can record live audio, edit MP3 files, cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds.

However, if you want to go for higher-end recording software, try out Sound Forge Audio Studio software. This professional software offers advanced audio mixing, editing, and effects processing capabilities.

Now that you've got the right equipment, it's time to start recording your show.

This is the fun part, so let your creative juices flow. Have fun with it and your listeners are sure to enjoy.

If you want to add music intros to your podcast, you can find some Podsafe music at

http://music.podshow.com
http://www.podsafeaudio.com
http://www.audiofeeds.org

These resources will help you to stay out of any lëgal trouble.

Once you've finished perfecting your recording, you'll need to export it as an MP3.

Keep in mind that your subscribers will be downloading your podcast from the Web. Therefore, you don't want your file size to be too large. You can save a lot of bandwidth by using the proper settings during your MP3 conversion.

For talk shows and audio books, I would recommend a bit rate of 48 - 56k Mono. However, if you are recording music or music/talk combinations, you'll want to choose between 63 - 96k Stereo. A high bit rate (around 160kbps) is great for music but overkill for a talk show.

Once you convert your audio file to MP3, you also need to edit the ID3 tags. These tags identify the artist, title, and genre.

Now it's time to upload your audio file to your web server.

Once you've done that, you must create an RSS file. This is a crucial step because it allows listeners to subscribe to your podcast and have it automatically synched to their MP3 players. This is the step that transforms your audio into a true podcast.

An RSS file is created in XML and will contain four main items: title, description, link, and enclosure. You can also use your RSS feed to provide your listeners with additional information, including file length, file size, file name, category, topics, and channels .

You can see an example of a podcast RSS feed at http://scottp.podomatic.com/rss2.xml.

If you don't want to write your RSS file from scratch, there are plenty of RSS file generators available. One of my favorites can be found at TDScripts.com.

However, if you are using Wordpress to distribute your blog's RSS feed, then turning your blog into a podcast station is quick and easy. Simply link an audio file (MP3) from your web server into one of your posts.

Once you have linked to the audio file from within your post, WordPress will automatically add the necessary enclosure tag to your RSS feed to make it useable as a podcast.

If you would like to provide your visitors with convenient play buttons for your podcast, you can do this using Odeo.com or Audible.com.

How to Publicize Your Podcast

A podcast isn't much use if no one is listening to it. Creating the podcast is just a small part of being a podcaster. To be truly successful, you must promote your podcast to an eager audience. You can do this in a number of ways.

First, you should tell your website visitors about your podcast. You can do this using a podcast chicklet. Create a custom chicklet at TwisterMc.com.

Next, complete the ping förm at http://audio.weblogs.com to get your podcast listed there.

Then, submit your podcast into iTunes. This alone can bring you a nice subscriber base.

However, you'll also want to get your podcast into all major and minor podcast directories. You can find a complete list of directories at: MasterNewMedia.org.

If you are persistent in your promotions, you should see your subscriber base rise fairly quickly.

Podcasting is one of the best ways to increase your online audience. If you do not keep up with these exciting changes, you will quickly get left behind and your online business will certainly suffer. Therefore, have fun and dig into what I expect to be a massive transition in the way we communicate online.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

2006-10-04T18:41:00.000-07:00

Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millíons of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a frightening pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent frëe marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don't be fooled by the 'frëe' label, these marketing tools might be frëe, but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for frëe? It probably makes good business sense in the long run, by providing these frëe tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable frëe Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffíc, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for frëe.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your salës or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI .

You may be placed on a waiting list for this highly in demand service from Google.

LINK: http://www.google.com/analytics/

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is an XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

LINK: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone, or another site, lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

LINK: http://www.google.com/alerts

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to list or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

LINK: http://froogle.google.com/

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly frëe but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for frëe. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

LINK: https://checkout.google.com/

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffíc and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple frëe blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your own web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

LINK: http://www.blogger.com/

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your own pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

LINK: http://toolbar.google.com/T4/enterprise/

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the importance of having a large contact list of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

LINK: http://groups.google.com/

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a chëck from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into online marketing (do such creatures exist?), Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra income from your site.

For professional marketers using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.

LINK: https://www.google.com/adsense/

10. Google Writely

A recent addition to Google's stable of frëe products. Writely is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers - it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Lets face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

LINK: http://www.writely.com

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

LINK: http://www.google.com/trends

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these frëe services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these frëe Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

The Google Goal Of Indexing 100 Billion Web Pages

2006-09-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

By Danny Wirken

Google's Goal of Quality Search

In their paper 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine' it is very evident that Google's goal has always been to be one of the best search engines there is in terms of the quality of the results it gives. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, however knew that in order to do this, Google needed to be able to store information efficiently and cost effectively and to have excellent crawling, indexing, and sorting methods or techniques. Google not only aimed to give quality results but to produce the results as fast as possible.

Google started as a high quality search engine and continues to be the best search engine today. It has managed to stay true to its original intent to be a search engine that not only crawls and indexes the web efficiently but also a search engine that produces more satisfying results in comparison to other existing search engines. To stay true to the goal of providing the best search results, Google knew right from the start that it had to be designed so that the search engine could catch up with the web's growth. According to Brin and Page "In designing Google we have considered both the rate of growth of the Web and technological changes. Google is designed to scale well to extremely large data sets. It makes efficient use of storage space to store the index". They knew that they needed much space to store an ever growing index.

Google's index size, which started out as 24 million web pages, was large for its time and has grown to around 25 billion web pages, still keeping Google ahead of its competitors. However, Google is a company that doesn't settle for just beating the competitors. They truly aim to give their users the best service there is and that means as a search engine they want to give users access to all or at least most of the quality information that is available on the web.

Google's New System for Indexing More Pages

As mentioned earlier, Google aims to give access to even more information and has been devoting time and much effort to realize this goal. It seems that the new patent entitled 'Multiple Index Based Information Retrieval System' filed by Google employee Anna Patterson might be the answer to the problem. The patent published just this May of 2006 and filed way back in January of 2005 shows that Google might actually be aiming to expand their index size to as much as a 100 billion web pages or even more.

According to the patent, conventional information retrieval systems, more commonly known as search engines, are able to index only a small part of the documents available on the Internet. According to estimates, the existing number of web pages on the Internet as of last year was around 200 billion; however, Patterson claimed that even the best search engine (that is Google) was able to index only up to 6 to 8 billion web pages.

The disparity between the number of indexed pages and existing pages clearly signaled a need for a new breed of information retrieval system. Conventional information retrieval systems just weren't capable of doing the job and just wouldn't be able to index enough web pages to give users access to a large enough percentage of the present existing information available on the web.

The Multiple Index Based Information Retrieval System, however, is up to the challenge and is Google's answer to the problem. Two characteristics of the new system makes it stand out compared to the conventional systems. One is that it has the "capability to index an extremely large number of documents, on the order of a hundred billion or more". And the other is its capability to "index multiple versions or instances of documents for archiving...enabling a user to search for documents within a specific range of dates, and allowing date or version related relevance information to be used in evaluating documents in response to a search query and in organizing search results."

With the new system developed by Patterson, Google now has the ability to expand its index size to unbelievable proportions as well as improve document analysis and processing, document annotation, and even the process of ranking according to contained and anchor phrases.

History of Google's Index Size

Google started out with an index size of around 24 million web pages in 1996. By August of 2000, Google had managed to quadruple their index size to approximately one billion web pages. In September of 2003, Google's front-page boasted an index of 3.3 billion web pages. Microdoc, however, revealed that the actual number of web pages Google had indexed during that time was already more than five billion web pages. In their article 'Google Understates the Size of Its Database', they emphasized that Google not only specialized in simplicity but also in understating their power and complexity. Google was still managing to stay ahead of its competitors and continued to surprise everyone with what they had up their sleeves.

As Google's index continued to grow the number in their front page grew impressively large as well before it plateaued at eight billion web pages. This was around the time that Patterson filed the new patent. Then in 2005, with controversies in index size growing, Google decided to stop counting in front of the public and simply claimed that their index size was three times larger than the nearest competitor's index size. Google also maintained that it was not just the size of indexed pages that was important but how relevant the results they returned were.

Then in September of 2005, as part of Google's 7th anniversary, Anna Patterson, the same software engineer who filed the patent on the Multiple Based Index Information Retrieval System posted an entry on Google's official blog claiming that the index size was now 1,000 times larger than the original index. This pegged their index size at around 24 billion web pages, about a fourth of Google's goal of indexing a 100 billion web pages. It seems then that Google must have started using the new system in mid 2005. With the new system in place, we can only wait and see how fast Google will reach the goal of a 100 billion web pages in its index. It's most likely though that when Google has reached that goal it will set an even higher goal to provide continuous quality service.

About The Author
Danny Wirken is co-owner of http://www.theinternetone.net an internet marketing website that primarily focuses on the many aspects, methodologies and processes that are used in internet marketing.

How To Optimize Your Site For The Search Engine Of Tomorrow

2006-09-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

by Moshe Morris

When it comes to ranking well in the search engines many of us take a "best practices" approach. We focus on the best techniques. We are concerned with what you are suppose to do and how you are suppose to do it. There is, no doubt, great value to knowing what works (after all it works). However, there is a down side to this approach. If we only focus on techniques and never bother to take the time to worry about why those techniques are successful, then we may very well find ourselves "surprised" one-day when all of the sudden what worked yesterday no longer seems to work today. This, indeed, is what many people (unhappily) discovered with Google's Big Daddy update.

The search engines, it turns out, are rather dynamic and they are constantly changing the way in which they determine which sites rank well for any given search term. What this means is that long-term success with the search engines requires us to understand the goals of the major search engines and how that effects their algorithm. It is not sufficient to know what the search engines do today, we also need to get a sense of where the search engines are likely to do tomorrow and to build our optimization campaigns accordingly. If we can learn to think like the search engines, then we can start to build and market the type of sites that they want to rank well. And with billions of dollars of cash and some of the brightest minds that roam this planet, the search engines are getting rather good at ranking highly those sites which they want to rank well. Therefore, the prudent, long-term strategy to ranking well in the search engines is to learn how to both build and market our sites exactly as the search engines want us to.

This leads us to an obvious question, or rather two obvious questions. The first question is what types of websites to the search engines like? The second questions is how do the search engines want us to market our sites? The answer to the first question is that the search engines like relevant websites. That is to say, websites which their customers (i.e., people who search online) find relevant for the search terms that they enter. The answer to the second question is that the search engines like popular websites and as such want us to make our sites popular. Note, though, that by popular we mean real world, natural popularity; not contrived popularity. These are sites people link to because they like the site and find it of value.

What this means is that if you can create a site which both the search engine's customers and other webmasters and web-users find valuable then you have a winning formula for long-term ranking success. And while that may not sound so easy, it's not so hard either. It basically requires you to stay abreast of the type of content that people are looking for as well as the types of websites that people find popular (guess what, they are often times, although not always, the same thing).

Relevant Content In terms of creating relevant content the key is to figure out what sort of information, products or services your customers need (remember, often times your customers started out as the search engine customers). Look around at the types of sites that do well, what kind of content do they provide. Talk to your customers and listen to what they want. The more information you can get about unmet needs the greater the chances you have of providing high-quality, relevant content (the type that search engines like showing and people like linking to). The key is to constantly be on the lookout for ways to create the best site possible for your particular field or industry.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Stay up-to-date In any field, there are always new developments, insights, techniques, etc. By staying abreast of these you provide yourself with numerous possibilities for creating meaningful content. You can write about it, apply it, review it, explain it, etc. The new is always interesting. It is also confusing and (perhaps) not yet known. Take advantage of these facts to create interesting, exciting, relevant content.

Play to your strengths Know your area of expertise and take advantage of that to help provide useful, interesting content. If your strength is money, then hire someone to build your content. If you excel at making connections, then perhaps you can encourage other people to build your content. Not everything has to come from you, just something. Figure out what you are best at and act accordingly.

Improve upon existing content Look at what is already successful and see if you can do it better. Look around at all of the different types of content online and see what needs improving upon and then improve upon it.

Real popularity In terms of creating real popularity for your site (and all the links that come with that) the key today is finding those people with the power to influence popularity and then giving them what they want. Blogs, forums, del.icio.us, digg.com, news sites, etc, all of these venues are run by real live people who (if they like your site) have the power to send large numbers of visitors and links to your site. However, they will only do so if you give them what they want. What that means is that in order to create real popularity online you first need to find out what the "powers that be" want and how you can give it to them.

Here are a few examples of what type of content creates popularity online:

Bloggers Bloggers need something to blog about. After all, each and every day they need to supply their readers with new content. So if you can create something that they find of interest then they will gladly write about you and your "creation" (which, of course, will include a link).

News sites News sites need stories and/or articles of interest. Is there something about your site which is newsworthy? If so, then package it as a story and write a press release about it (or contact the press directly if you have any connections). Alternatively, offer to write a column or a special article. At the same time, ask them what subjects they are interested in and see if you can either write or hire someone to write an article about it.

Social Media Sites There are no clear cut rules about what types of content do well at sites like Digg.com and del.icio.us. What does well in one industry may be of little interest to another. It is best to look at the types of content which are popular for your industry on these sites and then to create similar content on your site. With that said, certain types of styles seem to do well (such as lists or how to articles). Figure out which styles work best for your target audience and write your content accordingly.

Content is king So, at the end of the day, high rankings which last revolve around one word, content. But take note, not all content is the same. The search engines may like one type of content, bloggers another, and people on digg.com yet another. The key to long term success online is becoming aware of which content speaks to which audience and then learning how to efficiently give each party what they want. What's nice is that the same content can often times be reworked to appeal to the particular needs of different groups . Either way, content is now king (indeed, it has been for a while). So go out, create lots of it, make sure that it is relevant and of the highest quality, and you and the search engines can live together happily ever after.

About the Author

Moshe Morris is president of SEM Basics (www.sembasics.com) - a leading resource center for search engine marketing tutorials and other valuable search marketing products and services.

Blogging: A Start-Up Guide

2006-09-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

by Claire Brent

Blogging is so easy that you probably do not need a start up guide, but for those who have blogaphobia, I am doing this.

1. By reading this you are half way there. This is a blog style post.

2. If you post, you are blogging to an extent.

3. If you take my advice and get a blog, you are a blogger.

4. If you sell anything, or create money trail, you are making money blogging.

Now that I've bored you with a list, you probably want something good. I'll give it to you. If you have never blogged, this little start-up guide is for you. If you have blogged, maybe you just need a refresher course.

Anyway, you probably want to know how to blog. You know what blogging is and you know you can make money with it. What you may not know is how you start.

Well, it's easy. Choose a provider. Make sure it's someone who has the up-to-the minute programming so you don't look ancient.

Create an account -Then, start writing! Alas, you are going to say "exactly HOW do I just pop into the blog and write?"

It's not some horrid thing where you have to have a book next to you figuring out designs and codes. For the most part, there are layouts you choose from and often you can even pick colors of fonts and such. It's like decorating a living room, only this is a living room about 12 million people could possibly visit. So make it look nice!

You don't have to have software usually or anything snazzy. You simply pick a design or layout and create a look or image based upon choices that you'll be prompted to make.

Is it an article, a column? What the heck IS a blog? As mentioned before, in another article -blogs are actually entries. It's like a diary or a journal. You simply write, but note - that whatever you do not want the world to see, do not write. After you write your entry, you will be asked to publish or post it. Once you do that you still can often, go in and edit or delete it. You will usually give your blog a title. You type your entry, which you may call "blog" or "Content" and away you go. You've just blogged.

Sometimes, you allow (or not allow) the public or a select bunch you've invited to make posts or comments to what you have written. This makes for fun if you do allow it but sometimes it can be downright harsh. There is usually no screening on posts unless you specifically in your template and choices make sure no one has potty mouth or gossip mouth. The way to do this is to be a moderator, or to even hire a moderator. This way, all posts first go to an email address (they have no idea) and you or someone with some degree of ethics and standards, will edit, delete or allow the post to go through. That personally is my advice; don't let downers, potty mouths or idiots post on your site unless you are really sure that you will attract only a top-notch crowd. Since blogs are often public places - think of the blog as a public bathroom. Only let the people in who flush and wash their hands. This is an especially nice feature also for control freaks.

Do I have to be youngish? Hip? Can I be a boomer or older than dirt? Anyone can blog. There is no set rule of thumb. It used to be hip kids, journalists and maybe a select other few who did it. Now, you have grandparents who blog and let their kids blog also - and grandkids. It's a great way to keep the family as a unit if you keep everyone together, you know?

Blogs are special. They are unique. They are really nothing more than a public diary or journal - where a web site is all about people going to the site and just staring at it, a blog is all about saying, "Come on in and sit a spell" - which is why you will find that blogs tend to be more upscale, than say, a chat room or chat board. Blogs are the welcome wagon of the internet. Chat rooms are like a seedy bar. Chat boards are like hospital waiting rooms where people sometimes share doom, gloom and gossip. But Blogs are really usually positive. Sure you will have that negative blog here and there - but a decent blog owner will beget decent posters for the most part.

It is a small world. So, when you visit a blog, or when you have a blog - expect people to comment online. It's a diary where people will actually say - "this is cool, and I want to be a part of your life and share this with you" and...they will! If you allow this in the template, you will have comments that agree, disagree or just share. You may have folks promoting themselves, or you may have cheerleaders supporting your blog. Either way, it's a great way to make friends and yes, make money if that's what you wish.

You need to realize that your blog could and very well may be found on the net during someone's search. For instance, if you have certain tag words in your blog, or it's just plain popular, a key word search could turn up your blog. It's the net, and it's public. Blog smart!

Blogging is for you, even if you think it isn't. You may think you are not a writer. So what? First of all, if it is a personal blog meant for only a few folks, and you don't care that you are not a thespian of the paper, then don't worry about it. Also, you don't have to be a super-duper writer at all. Even if you are a writing savant, you certainly at least have an opinion, correct? Voice it through blogging! You also probably have a passion such as gardening, cooking or fixing old cars...that a bajillion people also have, that you could talk to and share with. Again, you can make money. If you like gardening, you may want to think about selling seeds, or dried lavender from your garden, or renting ad space or a few thousand other ways to make money. Maybe an online course where you teach the power of planting? As long as you have passion and ideas, there will always be possible ways to make money that are fun and proactive.

Blogging is absolutely one of the most easy, fun, economical yet possibly financially rewarding hobbies you can start for yourself.

Using Google AdWords to Increase your Adsense Profits

2006-09-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

By: John Gall

I had been using Google's Adsense program to generate some revenue from my various web sites. Prior to Adsense, I was never previously paid to run these and did so for a hobby. Overall I was pleased with the income I was generating. The only drawback was that I was always looking for ways to get people to my sites. I enjoyed working to bring in more visitors but felt that if I looked at my earnings vs. the hours I worked, the economics weren't making sense.

Then I figured out that certain sites were paying way more than the minimum .05 cents per click. I reasoned that if I could get pay visitors .05 - .10 to visit. Then if they clicked enough ads that paid much more than I paid, then Adwords could be a viable way to increase traffic to my sites.

So I paid my $5.00 setup fee and added my two most profitable sites. That same day my traffic jumped dramatically and as I thought. Visitors who came in via Adwords were more likely to click other Google ads on my site. My conversions went up and I thought why not put all my sites on Adwords.

This was where some careful research was needed. I found that some sites I run had adwords sponsors who were only bidding the minimum. Remember the concept was to under bid the advertisers on my sites. While my traffic skyrocketed, my expenses for a few sites seemed to outweigh any benefit. When my reports came in it was clear that I needed to use Adwords for only the sites that featured high bidding advertisers. This creates margin for those visitors who come in via paid ads but do not click to my own sponsored ads.

The exception would be if my site was offering a product or service. Then it would be well worth sticking with Adwords on those sites just to get more buying traffic. Because my sites are purely informational I had to watch carefully to ensure I was putting money into Adwords where it was working for me. In some cases I upped my bid on some keywords that were clearly bringing in steady traffic that converted well.

Google's new offering called Websense may change this a bit. By allowing you to put Google's search form on your site and then paying if your visitors search off your site and click other sponsored links it may make those underperforming sites profitable again. Time and further research will tell.

The moral of the story is that Adwords is a great way to dramatically increase your profits when using Adsense. Care needs to be taken to see that you are putting your money where it is most effective.

The One Simple Trick That Can Double Your Adsense Revenue

2006-09-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

By: Brad Bahr

I've been working with Google's Adsense program for a while now. If you're not already in the program, why not take a look at it now at https://www.google.com/adsense. I really like Adsense. It makes me money and it's easy to work with. Just some simple copy & paste into your webpage and you're done. Right?

Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.

I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.

Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?

Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colors on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.

After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one color combination that seemed to work the best.

Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colors of the label. What were these colors? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colors has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.

My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's color scheme may work better with a slightly different color combination. Try lots of different color variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colors. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the color scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.

After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colors even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of color combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.

Treble your Adsense Income in 60 Minutes

2006-09-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

By: Kenny Hemphill

Google's Adsense is one of the most powerful weapons in website publisher's arsenal. It enables you to monetize your sites easily and if used properly can generate a very healthy income. However, if you're not using it properly and maximizing the income you squeeze from it, your leaving money on the table — something we all hate doing.

Boosting your return from Adsense can be done very easily and quickly, and you'll be amazed by the results.

I ran Adsense on my sites for over a year before I discovered these techniques, and like many people, I though I was doing pretty well. My clickthrough rates and CPM figures were very healthy, and I didn't honestly think that they could be improved a great deal. How wrong I was. Immediately after I implemented a few quick changes my clickthrough rate more than doubled, and by doing some fine tuning I manged to get nearly three times as many people to click on the ads as had been previously doing so.

The first technique is one that was 'discovered' by the amazingly helpful Debs, on SiteSell's SBI! forums. When I read it originally, it made sense and I decided to goive it a go, but I wasn't prepared for the immediate impact it would have on my income. It involves making only a few simple changes to the format and positioning of your Adsense ads.

Firstly, forget about using banners or skyscrapers. These ad formats are almost universally ignored by surfers. Why? Because we've all been conditioned to recognise a skyscraper or banner as an advert and as these adverts are rarely of any interest, we ignore them. What's needed is a way of integrating Adsense ads into the editorial on your site as seamlessly as possible. To do this you need to do three things:

1. Use the 250 x 250 rectangle format 2. Make the background color of the ad the same as the background color of your site, or as close to it as possible. 3. Make the ads borderless by setting the border color to be the same as the background color of the ad.

These changes can be made by logging into your Adsense account and creating a custom format. Just select the 250 x 250 ad format, and create a custom color palette. Use the color picker to pick the coor you want. The Javascript is automatically generated at the foot of the page, ready for you to copy and paste into the pages on your site.

Now, you need to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. Research using retina scanning technology has shown that the place that surfers tend to look at first and most often is the top left. I don't know the reasons for this, perhaps it's because that's where we're used to seeing the most useful search engine results (at the top of the rankings) and search engines are the sites we most often visit, so we automatically look at the same place on other sites.

Whatever the reasoning, as soon as I made the above changes to my Adsense ads, clickthrough rates doubled, immediately.

The second technique is much newer and one which is entirely based on my own experience. Google has recently added a new type of Adsense format, called Adlinks. This displays a series of links on your page in the same style of Ad unit as regular Adsense ads. When a user clicks a link they are taken to a page of adverts that resembles regular Google search results. As a publisher, you are paid every time a user clicks one of those ads.

Adventurous soul that I am, I jumped in with both feet and started to trial Adlinks on my most visited pages as soon as it was launched. I'm using the four links in a square box format, positioned top left of my page content. After a few weeks of running Adlinks alongside regular Adsense ads, it's clear that the return on Adlinks is about a fifth to a quarter higher than regular ads. There's no clear reason for this but one explanation may lie in the fact that clicking on an Adlink takes the user to page of 'results'. When a user clicks on one of these, you are paid for the click. If the user finds what they want, great, if not, it seems that they hit the Back button on their browser and try again, just as you would for normal search engine results. Then they click on another result, and you get paid again. So it's possible to be paid more than once from the same Adlink click. Now, this reasoning is speculative, but it does make perfect sense in the light of my Adlinks results.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allow you to track your results across a number of sites on a site by site, page by page, or just about any other basis you choose. This is a very powerful tool and you should use it to find out which ads are performing best for you and fine tune your Adsense and Adlink ads accordingly.

So you see, by spending an hour or so of your time making a few adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites, you can very quickly treble your Adsense income. Give it a go, you'll be amazed by the results.

Four Key Requirements to Profiting with Google Adsense

2006-09-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense is no longer a secret. The cat is out of the bag, and thousands of books have been written on how to compromise Google's intellect, and generate ridiculously high profits by placing sponsored links on websites. When Google Adsense was first introduced, not many people knew about it, but the ones who did were reaping the rewards. Some website owners could earn an average income of $2,000 a month of click throughs alone. It wasn't long before everyone put Google ads on their sites, and revenues quickly decreased. Those that were making $5,000 a month were now only making $500 a month. Google became aware of the rising cases of click fraud, and redesigned the entire program. Google began to lower the PR rating of the site, or completely blacklisted them on the Google index altogether. Many people relied month after month for the Google income, and soon realized they needed to find another way to make more, or play Google's game. Google defeated many who played, but one specific gentleman from Britain, cracked the secret to winning the game, and he has allowed for me to share a few of the secrets he uses to make over $20,000 a month from Google alone. He has created several videos, showing the exact steps he takes to generate the revenue from his site. Below are four of the most important things you must do to increase profits with Google Adsense.

1. Although you are advertising companies ads, you don't want to make it look like a blatant ad. You want your ads to blend in with your site. Try to use colors that compliment your site, and make sure you play with the borders. Sometimes borders look like they are part of the site, and some stick out like ads. Every site will be different. If you do have a border, make sure it is close in color or theme with the site.

2. I always place ads in between the main paragraph on every one of my pages. Make sure the colors are the same, and the text needs to be the same size. I never add borders when I do this because the ad will stick out like a soar thumb.

3. Take full advantage of your right to make money on these ads. This means use the maximum amount of ads Google allows on every page. You can use four of the box ads, and 3 of the text ads. Place your ads at the very top of your page, the middle of your main text, both sides of the page, and the very bottom of the page. Remember to make it blend in, and if it doesn't, don't leave it there, consider changing the color, size, or location altogether.

4. Add Pictures to your site next to your Google ads. Remove the border, and place them on top or on side of your ads. I recommend using Google Banner size "728" x "90" and then placing the ads below the picture.

Tip #4 alone will increase your clickthrough rate by over 1400%. Before you go and find pictures, place a "728" x "90" Google ad on your site, and refresh your site a few times to see what the Google ads are related to. Then search online for images related to what the Google text displays. You can go to google and type "royalty free images" and you will find several sites related to what you are searching for. You might want to ad a keyword when searching for images. Perhaps have a site about soccer, and you want soccer images. You can type in "Soccer royalty free images" or "soccer ball royalty free images". I don't remember the exact code you use to add the pictures above the Google ads, but you can watch Michael Cheney's Video's, and see how he earns over $20,000 a month with simple ads on his site. Plus he explains a lot about earning money with ebay, and about a billion other ways to make money. The guy is a real genius, and I would recommend anybody who wants to learn Google Adsense secrets to atleast visit his site, and see what all the hype is about.

Adsense - Improve Your Earnings by 5 Folds

2006-09-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

by: Theodore Kirth

You may find many Adsense Gurus on the net, offering you thousand ways to improve your Google adsense earnings! Mind you guys, just buying some genius adsense template and expect it to produce thousand dollars a day is a sure impossibility!

I am telling you with my practical experience that nothing would work unless you are prepared to go that extra mile. You should get hold of the adsense secrets that are unique to your site. You must be prepared to make continuous changes and measure effectiveness on a continuous basis.

Following are simple but effective steps successfully followed by the author, which may help you to improve your adsense earnings by five folds or even more! However, keep in mind that nothing would work unless you customize these options to suit your requirements.

The Best Position - This is always the demarcation point which decides you should be earning in hundreds or thousands! You must identify the most likely position where the reader would be most tempted to click. At first you might have to follow what Adsense Gurus have suggested. However, you must keep in mind that what they have said is not unique to your site.

You should be bold enough to do your own research and identify the best positions unique to your site, 'cos there could be exceptions to what Adsense Experts have proposed. Best example I can quote is 'Plentyoffish.com' a dating site which earns half a million Dollars a month just by displaying a single Google ad in each page with completely different link color format than the rest of the site using!

White Is In Demand - Having more white space around the article and the Ad will definitely increase your click through rate. In my case, this is one of the real secrets behind the high click through rate in my Adsense ads. Your objective should be to get the reader's attention to the Adsense ad and the article. Therefore, it is important to have other areas blank as much as possible to centre reader's attention to the Ad and the article. Remove all unnecessary items which are cluttered around the article and the Ad and have more white space on either side of the page.

What is Your Ad Size? - Highly effective Ad formats are 336x250 and 768x120. However, it is up to you to find out the best size for your site. These are the widely tested and accepted sizes. Tyr them out and see the outcome.

Be Discreet - I personally don't prefer to server image ads in my Adsense campaigns because they dilute the effectiveness of the Ads. It is starkly obvious to the reader that they are clicking on Ads and the sole purpose of putting them is to make money! Just don't make it so obvious! Instead, include text ads which are relevant to the theme. Place the ads where the reader is likely to seek a break while reading the article or your copy.

Artistic Way To Be Discreet - The font, color and texture should match with the rest of the page. This will make the ad looks like part of the article. You have the options to use either an ideally matching color or a contrasting color. Either way is effective.

Use The Maximum but Have a Balance - Always try to use maximum number of adsense ads in each page. Don't lose balance however! Ads should not dominate the page.

Measure the effectiveness of Ad units - Always make use of Google Adsense channels to identify which position or format has produced high click through rates. Be prepared to change the Ad format, color and position according to your findings. These simple but effective methods surely drive you more income you never ever expect if you are prepared to follow those in your own way. Find out your way out today.

How to Make Every AdSense Ad on the Google Network Pay You!

2006-09-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t it be great if every keyword in Google’s entire inventory could be relevant to your site? Imagine that no matter what any person searched for, all of the ads that came up in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) paid you whenever someone clicked on them.

Sound good to you? That’s great. I think it sounds pretty cool as well, so let’s get busy making it happen for your web site.

Here’s a very much overlooked opportunity for AdSense users

That opportunity is called Google Search and this is how it works:

Tucked inside of your AdSense control panel is a section for creating a Google search box. Most AdSense users don’t even pay attention to it, and that’s a shame because hidden inside of that box is a lot of money that’s wanting to be yours.

When you add that search box to your web site you are creating an instant portal into Google’s entire keyword inventory. Any time a visitor runs a Google search from your site, every resulting AdWord ad that appears on the SERPs is tagged back to you. That means that no matter which ads they click on, money goes in your pocket. Got that? What an amazing earning opportunity.

By combining AdSense with the Google search box you open yourself up to an incredible opportunity to monetize your site. In fact, many AdSense users say that they earn more money from searches then they do from AdSense ads on their own page. And it makes sense when you think about it.

A clever idea gets even better

Just as you would expect, Google doesn’t leave you hanging without support or some great ways to make even more money. Take a look at the features and options that you can set up right from within your AdSense control panel.

Customized look and feel

You can grab the standard Google search box and be up and running in seconds. Or you can add your logo and make the box match your site’s color scheme with over 200 available colors.

Control the scope of your user’s search

You can configure the search box to search just your site or the entire Google network. It’s your choice. You can even provide your visitors with radio buttons that let them perform either search. No matter which search they choose, you’re making money every time they click on an ad.

Google will even host your internal site search result pages for you so you don’t have to spend a penny buying extra bandwidth or disk space from your ISP. How’s that for user-friendly?

Online Tracking Tools

Of course, Google also provides you with online tracking and reporting tools so you can see how well your shiny new search box is doing for you. You can see your queries, clicks, click-through rate and total earnings just like with your AdSense for Content ads.

So if you’re not earning money from every ad in Google’s inventory, log into your AdSense control panel and make it happen.

10 Great things NOT to do with Google AdSense

2006-09-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!

1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account.

Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is.

2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to change.

Any attempt to bypass Google’s built-in algorithms not only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but it threatens the financial modle that Google operates under. You’re not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough pockets to drag you through every court in the land if you damage their business with your hacking antics.

3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration, confirmation, and all "thank you" pages.

Don’t ask me why you can’t put your ads there. It makes sense to me that those would be wonderful locations. Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a hanging offense according to their Terms of Service.

4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor's ads (like Overture's) on the same page at the same time.

That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn’t demand 100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from their competitors.

5. Don't "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for clicking on your Google AdSense ads.

This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the time. Any of the “get paid to do stuff” sites that put Google ads in the member’s control panels are walking the plank and they don’t even realize it. Even those sites with the polite little messages asking you to “help keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor’s ads” are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google ads.

6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even if you are genuinely interested in the product or service and are thinking of buying it!

Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this activity and it won’t be long until you find yourself getting a goodbye note from their fraud team.

7. No misleading labeling

Google is very specific about what text can be placed around their ads. Their Terms of Service state: “Publishers may not label the ads with text other than ‘sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements.’ This includes any text directly above our ads that could be confused with, or attempt to be associated with Google ads.”

This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and barking up Google’s tree when they clicked on an ad that led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were expecting to visit.

8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks

You may be tempted to buy one of those “generates thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds” programs that are so popular these days but I’ll tell you this: Their days are numbered. Google is wise to such shenanigans and they will be hot on your trail. Other prohibited gimmicks include:

• ”Sneaky” page redirects that send a visitor off to a different site then they were expecting to visit.

• Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have substantially duplicate content.

• Hidden text or links of any type.

• Excessive outbound links on any page. Google recommends no more than 100. I’d keep it way below that.

• And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google’s mouth: “Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your website may be affected adversely by those links.

9. Don’t advertise anything on Google’s prohibited items list.

It’s a lot shorter lists than PayPal’s or eBay’s, but it includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or hard alcohol (I guess wine is OK), weapons, and the other usual stuff.

10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from running an honest site that’s designed to make the most out of this very profitable opportunity that Google offers!

Can You Really Make Money From Blogging

2006-09-04T20:21:00.000-07:00

by: Willie Crawford

Copyright 2005 Willie Crawford

One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.

My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!

Today I'll share with you how I do it.

Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by.

Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."

The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.

How Do I Monetize My Blogs?

I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.

I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.

I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.

How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?

I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.

I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!

The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.

I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Examples Of Profitable Blogs?

I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)

To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-)

The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at:
http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com

The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.

If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:
http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html

That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.

I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...

"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"

Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.

I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html

What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.

My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.

WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.

Here's how I use AutoBlogger:

I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.

AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.

AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.

If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.

OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!

It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."

Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!

There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html

A Niche Marketing Model In Three Easy Steps: Keyword Storage Sheds

2006-09-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

In this article we will review how you can put together a powerful three
step an action plan to attack a niche market.

Step I. - You Must Research A Niche Market.

First and most importantly you will have to research a market. I have
already done this and below the keyword example is -

Storage Sheds

Here are the top four keyword phrases on this list for this niche topic. The
full keyword list for this example was provided from this website -
http://www.findhotniches.com

NOTE: The full keyword list for contains over 250 phrases.

KEYWORD PHRASE 24 Hr Count 24 Hr Prediction

------------- ------------ ---------------

storage sheds 1345 1151

storage shed 631 540

outdoor storage sheds 445 381

storage shed plans 409 350

Now that we know that there is an actual demand for storage sheds we
can move on to step two.

Step II. - You Must Determine What The Surfer Really Wants.

This one is glaringly obvious that the surfer is looking for storage sheds
which is a physical product. They obviously need or want to have extra
storage space on their property or nearby.

More than likely the surfer wants to find the cheapest and easiest way to
get the best and most suitable storage shed for their needs.

So we need to move to step three.

Step III. - Put Together Your Profit Strategy.

You have several options to profits from niche this niche market but here
are just a few:

1. Create A Review Website.

You could create a website reviewing different types of storage sheds that
includes information such as:

- What sizes and models do different storage sheds come in?
- What type of material different storage sheds are made of?
- How long will your storage shed last before you have to buy a new one?
- What kind of storage shed you should buy based on your areas climate?
- What is required to put together a storage shed and how long does it take?
- Which brand of storage sheds are easiest to construct?

Do you get the picture that I am trying to paint here?

This will give your surfer a real reason to stay on your site and come back
often.

You could easily get this information by interviewing different storage
shed manufacturers or suppliers by giving them a call or emailing them.

Many times product manufacturers already have this type of information
already created to better sell their product. If they do ask them if you can
you use the information to add content to your website.

Also, you can ask them if they have an affiliate program for their storage
sheds. If not ask them if you could set up one for them and negotiate a
percentage of the sales for your self.

2. You Could Create An E-book or Physical Product.

How To Easily Build A Rock-Solid Long Lasting Storage Shed
Perfect For Your Specific Needs With Just $50 Worth Of Materials.

If you cannot write e-book yourself you can outsource this writing
project to a professional writer at the following sites:

http://www.elance.com
http://www.freelance.com
http://www.guru.com

3. Generate Extra Revenue By Joining the Google Adsense program.

This is pretty simple. Jus sign up for the Adsense revenue sharing program
at http://www.google.com/adsense. Each time someone clicks on one of
the ads on you website you will get paid a percentage of what the
advertiser pays to Google.

It is really easy to get set up with Adsense and the ads are automatically
targeted to be relevant your visitors interest. All you have to do is log
into your Adsense account and copy/paste a special code into your
web pages.

Always remember, marketing your website is a game of numbers and it
is not wise to build a business around any niche topic without doing the
proper keyword research before hand.

If there are not enough people interested in what you have to offer you
will not be able to bring enough traffic to your website to turn a decent
profit.

How to Make Every AdSense Ad on the Google Network Pay You!

2006-09-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

7 Tips For Creating Sites That Make Money

2006-09-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

Having a Google AdSense site is a great way to make money. And to create an AdSense site, all you have to do is have a Google AdSense account (which is free), a website or a blog (which is free), and some articles (which are free if you write them yourself). Once you get your site up and running, the AdSense ads will be targeted to your content.

Therefore, those looking for your content will come by, read your articles, and have a high probability of being interested in the targeted ads. Every time someone clicks an ad, you get paid! That is, as long as you have designed your site to maximize AdSense clickthroughs!

Let's look at seven tips for creating AdSense sites that create money.

#1: Keyword Density

Before you place ads on your site, be sure your keyword density is good. You will want to be sure that the right kinds of ads are placed on your site. A free way to determine what the ads will look like on your site is to go to http://www.resultsgenerator.com/adsense/ and type in your keywords. You will then be able to see exactly what ads would show on your site.

If you don't like what you see, then you know that you need to make changes to your keywords! You can get keyword suggestions from Results Generator from Overture or from the free trial version of Word Tracker.

#2: Focused

Not only will the ads be based on your keywords, but they will also be based on your content. You definitely want your keywords and your content to match as closely as possible.

#3: Write Often

The more information you have the better. Why? Because the more content you have, the more visitors you get. Many people suggest that you write a new article every day since no one wants to come back to your site to find the same old messages!

#4: Choose The Right Format

AdSense allows you to choose many different ad formats. Research has shown that wider ads are more successful. The top three formats are:

" 336x280 large rectangle
" 300x250 medium rectangle
" 160x600 wide skyscraper

Additionally, the 468x15 horizontal ad link under the navigation bar is also a good bet.

#5: Color Counts

You have the option to create a Google AdSense ad in any color of your choice. The best thing to do is to make your ad blend well with your site color scheme. You should make the border color and the background color the same color as your web site. You will want your text color to either be black or the color of your main content.

When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.

#6: Position Counts, Too

It is well known that visitors to a website scan the site to determine if it is worth reading. You definitely want them to see and scan your AdSense ads. Therefore, the best place to put them is in the top left part of your page or directly under your headlines.

#7: Increase The Number

AdSense allows you to use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes, and one unit of ad links. Using all that you can increases the chances of earning money.

Keep these seven tips in mind when creating your AdSense site and you will find that your clickthrough rates increase, thus increasing your money making potential.

The Easiest Way To Have A Google Adsense Account Fast

2006-09-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense is one of the easiest way to allow webmasters to make money from content websites. You just need to add some simple javascript codes on the web pages, and then when visitors click the ads, you make money. No need to sell and think yourself, Google does all thinking for you. Very easy, right?

Google Adsense is really a gold mine. People are creating niche websites just to display the ads and make easy money everyday - automatically. There are so many success stories about people earning thousands of dollars a month from Adsense!

If you don’t have an Adsense account yet, you should get one and start profiting from it!

However, not all who applied for an Adsense account gets approved. You need to show your content websites to Google first to get approved.

Then how if you don’t have a content website? No need to worry, here is a secret method to get approved - fast and easily - just read on...

Google has its own blogging service - Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/). You can start a blog on Blogger.com with any topics you like - and it is completely free. Once your blog is created, post two or more related articles on it. Wait for a day and then you can apply your blog for an adsense account using this link:
http://www.marktse.com/recommend/google-adsense/

Wow, your Adsense account will get approved in several days. Happy profiting from Adsense!

Whats Google AdSense

2006-09-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

AdSense may be one of the fastest and easiest ways to monetize traffic to your web site whether you have products or services for sale or you simply provide free content to your visitors.

Simply stated, Google AdSense enables website operators to place some code on their site that connects to Google’s ad server content database and pulls keyword-relevant advertising onto the web pages. The webmaster gets paid a percentage of the fee that Google receives from the advertiser every time a visitor clicks on an ad. There is no charge for the webmaster to participate in AdSense. All costs are covered by the advertiser who participates in the AdSense sister program called AdWords.

Google’s sends out digital “robots” which use proprietary algorithms to parse the host web page and analyze the content in an effort to determine what keywords are relevant. It reports its findings back to Google’s ad server which then serves ads matching those keywords. Given that the entire process is automated, the “ad robots” do a pretty good job of getting the advertising content right most of the time.

The History of Google AdSense

Google AdSense has its roots in the old “Google Content-Targeted Advertising” program which they introduced back in March of 2003. Although this program was similar in concept to AdSense, there was no automated way of participating. Each webmaster negotiated a deal directly with Google, and websites that served less than 20 million page views per month were not welcome to participate.

As Google grew, they began to see how much money they were leaving on the table by excluding the smaller sites, which greatly outnumbered the sites serving over 20 million hits that were willing to serve other people’s ads. Their answer to that problem was AdSense which has no minimum traffic requirements and is open to all sites meeting Google’s content and decency requirements.

How much can you make running Google AdSense?

The answer to that question depends upon three factors:

1. How much traffic your site draws
2.How many visitors click on your ads
3.How much those ads pay per generated click

With some ads paying as much as $5 or more, it’s possible that you can generate a serious income with AdSense. There are relatively well documented cases of some people earning as much as $500 per DAY and more. Numbers like that are rare exceptions however. Even so, there is no reason why you can’t earn somewhere around $1,000 per month, or more, once you get the hang of it.

How to get started using Google AdSense

Make a visit to Google’s AdSense Site (https://www.google.com/adsense/) and sign up. Make sure that you read their Acceptable Use Policy and that you follow their content requirements. Google has their own “AdSense Police” who will have no problem booting you out of the program if you fail to walk the line.

Using Google AdSense on your site is like collecting free money. There’s no reason not to do it and potentially thousands of dollars worth of reasons to do it.