Archive for July, 2010

How To Make Money With A Facebook Fan Page!

How To Make Money With A Facebook Fan Page!

Social media marketing used to be divided into two factions.  Social networking sites where you could connect with others, become perceived as an expert in your niche, build your own brand, create a great customized profile, add ‘friends’, join or create ‘Groups’, comment, message, add images, videos,  and other media, etc.,  and link building sites – where you could do your content publishing – put your blog posts, articles, photos, videos, and people sometimes had the option of voting your content up or down.

There wasn’t a lot of ‘social networking’ between people (at least not at first) on the link building sites, and the main attraction of these kinds of sites was quality content. Also, in a social networking site, you could make a rich, full profile but in a link building site, you didn’t have a big opportunity to customize your profile.

Until now.  Now, you can have a Facebook Fan Page.  Facebook is included in the “social networking” sites I talked about above.  But Fan Pages include the elements of a “link building” social media site.  All in one package.  And, you can have as many Fan Pages as you want, in whatever niche you want.

WHY FACEBOOK?

According to Mashable, Facebook will reach 500 Million active users by the end of July 2010.  On average, at least half of those users log into Facebook on any given day.  The average amount of ‘friends’ a single user has is 130 and, more astonishing, users visit Facebook for over 500 BILLION minutes per MONTH.  That should answer the question, “Why Facebook?”

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How To Find Honest Feedback on Web Hosting

Finding a good web host is never easy, but a web hosting comparison can make the task a whole lot simpler. If you are new to the idea of setting up a website on your own domain, hosting can be a scary subject. You have to commit to monthly or even annual payments to a company you never heard of before. The costs can be high and if you make a mistake, transferring your site to another host is a time consuming business.

Even if you have several years’ experience of web hosting, when it is time to upgrade to a different level of service you may be a little lost. Perhaps you are not entirely happy with your current hosts and feel it is time for a move. Or perhaps they do not offer the service that you are now looking for.

Of course you can find reviews of web hosts online and you may manage to track down the best website host for your needs that way. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that many web hosting companies offer a commission to anybody who refers a new customer to them. This means that the owner of the site where you are reading that favorable review of a certain hosting company could be paid for recommending them.

In many cases of course they will still give an honest review, especially if they are reviewing several web hosts side by side to provide a web hosting comparison. The best reviews will tell you some negative points along with the positive and clearly set out who will benefit from using this particular company and who will not.

Another place to find an excellent web hosting comparison is any online forum that serves internet businesses. You can ask around for which hosting companies are used by visitors to the forum and ask what they would recommend given your particular situation and needs.

There are also some dedicated forums specifically discussing website hosting where you can find criteria for a web hosting comparison. One example is Web Hosting Talk. This type of forum is an independent site where people gather to discuss their web hosting issues.

Many of the threads on these forums deal with technical matters, but you will also find a lot of threads either criticizing or praising specific web hosting companies. These can be very useful, but of course you have to bear in mind that it is only one person’s experience and often written at a time when they are most frustrated. Their experience as well as their needs and expectations may be very different than yours.

Often times representatives of the actual companies check in to this type of site and may respond to criticism. It can be very useful to see how they deal with issues here. Since you do not have a chance to see how they respond to a real technical support ticket before you sign up, this will be the best indication that you can get of whether they remain polite and helpful in the face of what can be severe and even unfair criticism from frustrated customers. This can be one of the best ways of building up a useful web hosting comparison.

Pros and Cons to PPC Advertising

Engaging in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has its own benefits and drawbacks. But what exactly is PPC advertising and what it can do to your business?

Business nowadays is doing different kinds of austerity measures when it comes to advertising their products and services. This is because of high rates of placing ads on print and on television. But there is a fast growing approach that businessmen can utilize to bring their services closer to the people and that is through Internet Marketing.

One tool that is causing internet marketing popularity is PPC advertising. This is a technique used in search engine marketing that requires one to pay a fee every time someone clicks an ad on your website. Usually this placement is done through a bidding process. If you are a top bidder for your keywords/phrases, you are sure to be on the number one spot on all search engines. Just be sure of the effectiveness of your ad copy to get the most number of clicks you need for your business.

Here are the benefits of PPC advertising are:

  1. You need not be a genius in computer and technology to be able to run this ad campaign.
  2. Immediate results are seen after a few days.
  3. No need to make a website conform to the SEO rules.
  4. Nothing to lose even if you do not top the pages of different search engines. You can still always choose PPC advertising.
  5. You can make use any search engine available.
  6. You can type in any keyword you like.

Cons of PPC advertising includes:

  1. Fixed payments every month to the search engine you choose.
  2. Pay for each click received by your website. At times, visitors are just competitors or people playing pranks on search engines. This hassle wastes money you put in to this advertising.
  3. Inability to pay for the fees next month would mean removal of your website on the paid listings.
  4. This advertising can only be used temporarily because it is difficult to handle in the long run.
  5. Pay-per-click pricing can be costly for long periods of time, therefore, this should be stopped after an ad campaign.

But how exactly PPC advertising can increase traffic, leads and sales?

PRE-QUALIFIED TRAFFIC. All visitors of your website are already considered as a qualified consumer or buyer of your product. PPC advertising leads your customers to you for a lesser cost.

INSTANT EXPOSURE, IMMEDIATE PROFITS. PPC search engines enable you to get your desired results fast. They will have your website live within just a few hours which means immediate increase in sale.

CONSISTENT TOP LISTINGS. This is to get your website on top of the sponsored search results for free. You just have to choose the keywords related to your site and business and place them within your web pages. After this, you are done.

PPC advertising enables advertisers to control their advertising campaigns. Advertisers have effectively targeted their audience and set their own price per click. PPC advertising networks provide the platform to identify the desired audience by geographic setting, topic and industry.  These networks have a list of websites of the publishers where the ads will be placed.

Tools are provided by the networks to check how the pay per click limit is working for a certain advertiser. If its still competitive, would it be even listed among the paid search lists or does it generate sales? Of course, if the advertiser made the highest bid, the better chances the ad will be seen in the search engine. These networks too provide protection for the advertisers against click fraud. This advertising set-up allows advertisers to set a daily budget for his ads, thus, less spending for unnecessary clicks. Advertiser will never go over his budget.

In PPC advertising, what are important are the keywords and phrases. You have to select at least ten “very specific” keywords that would give you the best traffic in the search. Then, write the ad creatively but straightforward. Tell the truth about your product or service and do not lie. Good thing if your product or service will not disappoint those that are relying on your ad’s promise – but what if it did otherwise? Important too is the clarity of the ad. Do not use very vague languages. Include important details like the price.

You should also remember to budget your bids. Do not go overbidding because you will only lose your money and do not go so low that your ads will never get the chance to show up. Check your profit against your spending. If you see no progress then most likely you have to drop your ad campaign.

More and more advertisers have been using PPC advertising and it will continue to grow faster than any online advertising techniques. From revenues of $2.6 billion in 2004 to $5.5 billion in 2009, cost per click will dramatically go up as well from $0.29 to $0.36.

PPC advertising is new in online marketing and it is going to continue in the years to come. For advertisers, this means increase revenues with fewer advertising expenses, savings, more sales, good return of investment (ROI) and effective ad campaigns in the days to come.

How To Build Your Niche with an Opt-in List

Before revealing the secrets of the trades, here are myths and fallacies that need to be cleared before one indulges into building an opt-in list. These marketing misconceptions could pose so much of an obstacle towards your profitting well from your business.

Not a lot of people use email

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods nowadays simply because virtually almost all people use email. Check on those email fields or blanks required to be filled up on various forms needed in processing different transactions. A person without an email address is tantamount to a person without an online home, which is one big shameful truth for this generation.

Email marketing campaigns can offend a lot of people

The not-so secret way to surmount this dilemma is through permission-based advertising. There’s no harm in trying after asking for permission.

It’s stupid to send email to all the people

The key to this predicament is to have a very discerning eye on who to email and who to not email. Better look for some metrics on how to know which group of people would give you high ROI or return on investment.

The Real Deal with Building Opt-in List

After clearing the fog regarding email marketing myths, here’s how one can benefit from employing the power of email marketing campaigns – building an opt-in list.

However, building an opt-in list is not a piece of cake particularly for the uninitiated. Here is a roundown of tips on how to succeed in this kind of marketing endeavor.

1. Strategic Collection of Data

Know which information from your audiences will help you in lowering expenses and/or make sales flourish. Devise a tactic to make people voluntarily provide you with the information necessary to create higher conversion.

Overload of data is not good. Ask only for opt-in, with their full name and email addresses. Make sure that the profiles that you gather are updated to aid in improving the relevance, timeliness and satisfaction from each deal you make.

2. Good Implementation

Old adage says it all – ‘action speaks louder than words’. This easily translates to the difficulty one has to undergo during the execution of his or her email marketing efforts. It’s a good thing that various methods, often low-cost, abound to hasten and facilitate the building up of one’s opt-in database.

Tracking your email marketing results can pose great hardship, too. Technology and relevant sources should be employed in making this aspect of your marketing a lot manageable. Your high traffic groups of opt-ins with the greatest result should be taken noted of.

The following are the most widely used methods to leverage channels without overspending:

1. Make use of websites.

It is an excellent tool for data collation and providing you with relevant info regarding your email offers. Use forms that solicit your visitor’s email address and consent.

2. Make use of print ads, brochures, TV, radio and direct mail.

These are the more popular ways of marketing aiming to lead traffic to one’s site. You may want to ask for signups for email services. Make your website more visible through these media. Offering free electronic newsletters and or rewards program can do well in making it easy to win the nod of your audiences, too.

3. Maximize your sales force.

Customer service associates can help a lot in making you benefit more from your email correspondence. Sales people with proper education on how to aid you in this endeavor can very well contribute to higher ROI. Techniques like offering account updates and special programs through email can easily land you those lists of valuable visitors.

4. Don’t make your point of sale pointless.

Forms for signup located at cash registers and other high-traffic and highly visible spots can be very excellent venues for your business to collect email addresses. Notification of upcoming sales through their email addresses and names can coax them to supply you with the information you need.

5. Conferences or trade shows can work, too.

Giveaway offers or entries on sweepstakes are great for opt-in to volunteer their contact details.

These tactics should be applied with adequate caution and should focus on earning the trust of your opt-in list instead of simply collating data for your sole own benefit. Always make sure that the forms that you will use and other methods that you will employ will not necessitate too much fuss to subscribe. This is for people to not be annoyed during the process of data supplication.

With that bunch of information, who can ever go wrong with the feat of building an opt-in list?

Here is some top autoresponders to consider on using.

Aweber

GetResponse

Do It Yourself Web Design

When you are trying to make money through promoting articles and affiliate links, you will need a good, simple, and easy to navigate website to put them on. There are two ways that you can accomplish this: you can try to do it yourself if you have any web design skills or you can hire someone.

Doing it yourself, unless you were a pro to begin with, can be difficult for some. You will need to read many tutorials and it may take some time to get going. You could also risk having a site that looks very badly made and thrown together. It is also important (for visitors and search engines) that your site is easy to navigate, which may be a problem if you do not know what you are doing.

Making a Do It Yourself website can be hard, but if you accomplish your goal, maybe you will learn so much that you can write a few articles on it to add to a new DIY niche site!

How to build a website of your own

These days, any business, or individual with a message, needs to build a business website to compete effectively with other businesses. But most people don’t know how to build a website. For beginners especially, the question of how to build a website can be an intimidating one. They know they should build a business website, but they don’t know how to. Building a website is, fortunately, a lot easier than they think.

Here’s how: to build a website easily and have it come out looking professional and compelling, you need a service designed to be easy for both experienced computer users AND amateurs alike to build a website. For beginners need very intuitive tools and support to help them, and experts need maximum flexibility to let them build the business website they want. Homestead was founded with just that purpose: to make it easy to build a website for beginners, and to make tools available so that they and more experienced users could build a business website that truly represents their business well. The how to build a website tutorial shows you how.




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