How To Start An Online Business

Advertising With Adsense

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:58:00 +0000

Adsense is a cool way to advertise your business that can be quite effective for your line of business. It involves advertisements for your business being posted on the websites of others. In a world where millions access the internet every day, this type of marketing is very effective. It has the potential of generating more traffic to your website. A percentage of that traffic will likely result in an boost of sales for your line of business.

It is less expensive than other forms of marketing because you only pay when a consumer clicks on your link from one of the websites you are advertising on. This is a good opportunity for all types of businesses that have a very small budget.

Would you like to start advertising using Google Adsense? Visit www.AdWords.com. You need to select keywords that relate to your business as this is what Adsense uses to select which relevant pages to display your advert on. made to relevant websites who will be posting your ads. Google Adsense offers great tutorials to assist you select the right keywords for your business.

You also have the ability to choose different advertising formats and you can target specific countries. You can choose your maximum cost per click and can change your adverts. Once you have tweaked your adverts you can increase your advertising spend.

I also suggest that you buy click fraud software as their are many people who like to spam or run automated tools that will click on your adverts. This is mainly a precautionary measure.

Which Business Model is Right for You?

Mark Abrahams — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:09:00 +0000

There are numerous ways to make money online. You should focus on choosing the one which fits your interests and skills, not just the one everyone else says brings "easy money".

Here are some of the most common online business models:

1. Selling tangible goods

2. Selling information products (intangible/downloaded)

3. Affiliate marketing

It takes a certain personality to thrive in any one of these. Let's take a look at the traits associated with each.

The Seller of Tangible Goods

This type of entrepreneur usually possesses previous experience in the retail industry, though it is not totally necessary to have previous experience in order to succeed. However, an inexperienced online retailer faces the biggest learning curve.

In order to sell tangible goods, you'll need to learn the ins and outs of wholesale for product sourcing. You'll need to learn how to set the optimal price point for your products to remain profitable and competitive. You must deal with shipping and returns.

If you run a one-person operation, it will be near impossible to ship products in the necessary volume. In this case, you'll need to find companies which can "drop ship" your product. Drop shipping is a fulfillment service.

Your customer purchases a product from you at your retail price and then you order that product from a wholesaler at the wholesale price and they ship the product to the customer on your behalf.

This sounds ideal – but be forewarned. Most established wholesalers have minimum order requirements and will not ship single items.

Drop ship wholesalers often mark up their prices and you end up paying at least 10%-15% above the true wholesale cost. This isn't a small price to pay when your objective is competitive pricing. Even a small mark up can kill your profit margin.

If you choose this route, be prepared for a lot of hard work! Online retail requires persistence, patience, strategic planning and a high degree of risk.

The Seller of Intangible/Information Products

Information products present an ideal opportunity for small, home-based business owners. Your costs of development and overhead are low, while your potential profit margin is high.

Why? You can set any price you choose when you own your own product.

Your supply never runs out. You are limited only by your imagination and your ability to think up new and creative products to sell.

You will need a new skill set if you choose this path. Primarily, you will need to learn good copywriting skills and how to sell people on what they desire, not on what they think they need. It’s relatively simple to entice a visitor to purchase, say, an MP3 player when they're already looking for one. This doesn't require convincing sales copy.

An information product, though, does require good copy. You're asking your potential customer to invest in a product they aren't familiar with – something they can't see or touch or play with like a tangible product.

Information marketing is very much "all in the mind". It rests on your ability to stir up people's passions and secret wishes. If you pride yourself on seeing "the big picture" and have the heart of a teacher or communicator, information marketing could be the right choice for you.

The Affiliate Marketer

The affiliate marketer is an interesting breed. He makes a living selling products he does not own. His profit comes from commissions paid on sales he refers to other merchants.

As an affiliate marketer, you can 'sell' both tangible and intangible products. In other words, you could earn commissions on anything from a vacuum cleaner to an e-book.

Obviously, you have a great deal of latitude in which products you choose to market.

This breadth of options is both a strength and weakness. It's very easy to lose focus. It's also such a popular business that you face competition in the thousands – not just from other affiliates, but sometimes the merchants themselves.

The number one skill to develop as an affiliate marketer is the ability to generate highly targeted traffic. You also need to learn how to capture that traffic and do a bit of extra selling before they hit the merchant's site. If you don't capture the visitor's e-mail address, they're gone for good – and you'll get stuck trying to generate volumes of traffic over and over again just to capture enough "luck of the draw" sales to get by. It's like throwing your ad budget down a hole.

If you want to be an affiliate marketer, be prepared for stiff competition and be ready to innovate on a constant basis. Last but not least, have a back up plan. Many affiliates have been left in the lurch by unethical merchants or merchants who suddenly go out of business. Remember, your paycheck is in someone else's hands.

I've given you a lot to think about in today's lesson. Mull it over a bit.

The Online Marketplace

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:27:00 +0000

Can you really make money online? The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

First, though, you need to understand how this game really works. The right mindset is crucial to your success.

You've probably come across numerous business opportunities already. After all, since you signed up for this course, I know you're actively searching for information. I hope you haven't become jaded already by the con artists out there who make false promises of over-night riches.

The fact is you can profit significantly and, yes, even quickly once you learn the right way to do business online. So, approach this course with an open mind. It will fill in the pieces for you which, up until now, have been missing.

What E-Commerce is really all about

There’s nothing magic about the Internet. It's really just another medium of communication. The difference between doing business online versus doing business in a brick and mortar establishment is this:

1. Your potential customer base spans across the globe if you so desire. You aren’t limited by your location.

2. Your business operates 24/7. You can still make sales even when the workday ends.

3. Your overhead is significantly lower than it would be in a traditional business, and the barriers to entry are lower as well.

4. You can create non-traditional businesses which have no parallel in the offline world.

As an online entrepreneur, you also enjoy a wider range of options in terms of the type and number of products you sell, their method of delivery and your profit margin after expenses.

Sounds great, right? It truly is an ideal situation for the small, home based business owner; but don’t quit your job just yet.

An online business requires just as much focus and dedication to get off the ground as any other business, so forget about working at home in your underwear right off the bat.

The first thing you need to do is investigate your options. What type of business can you start online? Which businesses are the easiest to set up?

Once you answer these questions, you'll need to learn how to implement your ideas online. How do you drive customers to your site? How do you convince them to buy?

If you already possess some business knowledge and common sense, you're off to a great start. The real challenge comes when you start translating this knowledge to match the rules of online commerce. The game is played a bit differently on the internet.

Technology makes possible so many new twists on customer acquisition and product delivery. Newcomers often have difficulty sorting out the differences between business models versus business strategies.

In other words, a lot the hyped products you've seen in the past had more to do with tuning up existing businesses than they did with creating businesses – but, they're sold to you as instant money makers, even though there’s no real business model behind them.

Don't worry if you don't understand this just yet. We're going to tackle all of these issues and more over the next six days. So, hang tight. We'll begin answering these questions in the next installment of the course.

Niche Marketing Overview

Mark Abrahams — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:01:00 +0000

Niche marketing is the latest craze among internet marketers today.

This new found appreciation for specialization is funny when you consider that it’s really all common sense. Every introductory level business class will teach you that market specialization is the key to distinguishing your business from the competition.

Let's look at how this shift in focus came about, and what it means for you.

The trend towards home-based business boomed in the 1990's. Alongside this trend, the Internet "grew up". New technologies emerged which allowed anyone with an internet connection to sell products online and get paid without leaving the house. Soon, a whole industry sprung up around money making and home-based business education.

Many of the internet marketing gurus you are familiar with today made their fortunes teaching other people how to make money online.

There was only one problem, though. People were learning the mechanics of marketing – things like how to generate traffic and how write better copy – but they weren't getting any information on how to spot profitable markets. A vicious cycle cropped up due to this oversight. Soon, everyone wanted to make money by teaching others how to money, and so on ad infinitum.

Finally, the industry wised up. A new class of teachers emerged with the "know how" and experience to assist others in the real world implementation of marketing tactics.

In other words, we've finally come to the point where content is valued over form. Now, we can talk about more than just, say, list building in the abstract. We can talk about building lists in the context of businesses devoted to pets, or motorcycles or health.

Best of all, we can finally begin the real work: how to find those markets, how to tap into them and how to sell to them. That’s what this course is all about.

So, stay tuned. Over the next week, you'll enjoy a healthy dose of real and actionable information. Once you learn the value of the "niche", you'll never look back.

E-mail Marketing Long Term Tactics

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:26:00 +0000

E-mail marketing continues to evolve. It is a process rather than a one-step tactic. As you grow your list and improve your marketing skills, you'll discover all sorts of clever ways to generate new leads.

Today we'll wrap up the course by taking a look at some of the advanced marketing resources you can use for long-term growth.

Joint Ventures

Joint ventures can be summed up by the old adage, "I’ll scratch your back, if you’ll scratch mine". You make deals with other list owners in a mutual trade for something of value: subscribers, commissions, products, etc.

For example, you might create a joint venture between your site and another site offering complementary products or information. The key to this type of JV deal is that the subscribers of both lists share the same interests.

You sell weight loss information to your subscribers; the other site sells exercise balls. See the overlap?

Before you approach a potential JV partner, you need to have all of your data handy and a clear idea on what you’d like to offer in trade. In other words, what are your selling points? Do have data on the responsiveness of your list? Can you assure your potential partner that your subscribers will take action?

Also ask yourself what you’d like to receive in exchange: perhaps a solo mailing to their list to generate new sign ups and sales for yourself?

Co-Registration Services

There is a lot of controversy over the effectiveness of co-registration services, but some marketers swear by them.

Co-reg services place advertisements for your list on a network of related sites alongside many others. In a typical scenario, the lead opts to subscribe at one site and is presented a form with checkboxes allowing them to auto-subscribe to additional lists before they finalize the primary subscription.

If you're interested in testing this method, I recommend giving World Wide Lists a try for your first campaign.

Article Submission

Do you enjoy writing articles? If so, then article syndication just might be the hot ticket for your site. Imagine writing a fantastic article that includes your web site address in the byline – and imagine if you could blast that article out across the internet.

It's not a fantasy. This is the magic of article syndication. If your article is good enough, it will be picked up by e-zine owners in need of content for their newsletters.

Avoid the Spam Plague

Mark Abrahams — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:33:00 +0000

Today we visit the dark side of e-mail marketing: being accused of sending unsolicited e-mail - worse yet, discovering that your messages are undeliverable to a large number of subscribers due to overzealous anti-spam programs.

What to do?

The very first thing you should do is read up on the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html) to familiarize yourself with the law. If the legal jargon is to much to wade through, you can read an excellent article on compliance here: How to Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Some of the very basic protections you should have in place are as follows:

Always require double opt-in to your list

Always make opting-out of your list easy

Be willing to manually remove subscribers if they have trouble unsubscribing on their own

Include language in each mailing reminding your subscribers of the opt-in nature of the list

Your next task is to beat the spam filters. A lot of consumers use anti-spam software to filter out unwanted e-mail messages. You should let subscribers know (either on site or within the first autoresponse message) that your messages could be blocked by their filters, and they should place your domain on their "white list" to avoid any problems.

It is especially important to educate your AOL subscribers as well. AOL's spam filtering modules (and even some of their users!) are notorious for blacklisting legitimate e-mails.

Some list owners have reported a delivery failure rate to AOL addresses as high as 60%. You are forewarned. It might even be a good idea to request AOL users to sign up to your list with an alternate address.

Creating Messages That Get Results

Mark Abrahams — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:00:00 +0000

This is where the real meat of e-marketing begins. You have a list of hungry subscribers at your fingertips and now you need to convert them into customers. You want to send them the best offer possible, presented in the best possible light.

In order to accomplish this, you need to create effective sales copy.

Good copy includes many elements: voice and style, proper grammar, spelling and punctuation, emphasis on benefits and much more. Let's talk a bit about each of these.

Voice/Style

Your messages should sound professional without sounding "stuffy".

You need to find your unique voice to connect with your subscribers. Pretend that you are sitting across the table from a friend and write as if you were speaking to them (leaving out, of course, things like swear words or references to your personal life).

You should also keep close watch over pronoun usage. Talk directly to the subscriber and avoid using the word "I" as much as possible. Be personable, but not too personal.

English 101

We all make mistakes in our writing at times. Your subscribers will probably forgive you for a few gaffes. However, you don't want to send out horribly written messages. Always run your copy through a spell-checker. Brush up on your grammar and punctuation skills if you've gotten rusty.

Focus on Benefits

Never place your focus on selling the product or its features alone. People want to know what the product can do for them. For example: will it save them time? Will it save them money? Will it bring more love into their life?

Remember that most consumers, even if they swear otherwise, purchase products that they desire, and not products they need. Self-gratification and self-improvement always lay behind the buying impulse.

Offer Useful Content First

Are you giving your subscribers useful information? You need to win them over first with lots of high quality, free content before you begin making offers. Your sales pitches should be periodic in nature.

It’s a really bad idea to flood your list with offers every single day of the week. If you want, you can bury an affiliate link or two in each newsletter as long as it points to a useful resource in the context of your content. Just go easy on the special offers, though.

The best way to prime your subscribers is through scarcity. Your offers should be something subscribers look forward to receiving, rather than something easily predictable.

Calls to Action

When you do finally send an offer to your list, don't be shy about letting your subscribers know what action you want them to take. If you want them to buy a product, sign up for a membership, visit a site, etc..then offer them the link and tell them to go for it.

Sprinkle your link several times throughout the copy for maximum effectiveness.

Converting Visitors into Subscribers

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:59:00 +0000

Visitor conversion is a challenge faced by every marketer. If you're spending money to generate traffic, you want to do everything possible to ensure that traffic isn't wasted. This means getting more bang for your buck by convincing more visitors to subscribe to your list.

In other words, conversion improves your return on investment and limits the temptation of spending more money on more traffic.

If your opt-in list isn't converting as well you expected, there are several target elements you can experiment with to improve your opt-in rates:

1. Web Copy

Is the copy on your site effective? Poorly written copy is one of the first culprits to investigate. Start by evaluating your headline. Is it enticing? Does it pull the reader in? A boring headline can cause people to click away without even reading the rest of the page. Check your main copy as well.

Do you explain the benefits of list membership? People always want to know what's in it for them. Make sure you offer them plenty of reasons to sign up.

2. Incentives

Incentives provide additional benefits and additional reasons to join your list. If you aren't doing so already, offer a unique course, e-book or piece of software for free as a bonus to subscribers. Many times this will convert hesitant visitors into subscribers.

People love freebies and they also can't resist satisfying their curiosity.

3. Make it easy to join

Have you placed your subscription box in a prominent place on the page? Some list owners always place their subscription box at the top of the page, while others place it at the very bottom. Either position can work well, but if you have a lot of copy to wade through, you might consider placing the box within the body copy at logical points. Remind your readers why they are there and what action you want them to take.

4.Watch out for 'bugs'

Sometimes software can fail for no apparent reason. Your server might be experiencing a database issue, your site might be temporarily unreachable or your autoresponder script may be malfunctioning.

It's always a good idea to do periodic tests by subscribing to your own list to check that everything still runs smoothly.

Ultimately, conversion comes down to offering prospects enough benefits to make joining your list an obvious choice. Your copy should get them excited, motivated and curious. Make it as clear as possible that you are offering them valuable information for free.

If your copy is too much of a sales pitch and short on benefits, the visitor will have a hard time finding a compelling reason to subscribe. People are wary of hype these days and too much focus on the "buy my product!" mindset raises a lot of suspicion. Most prospects see that and immediately think "this site will spam me with a bunch of offers I don’t want", and quickly click off the page.

Treat your opt-in page as an honest invitation to start a mutually beneficial relationship, and you'll see your conversion rates soar.

Generating Leads and Traffic

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:47:00 +0000

So, you've got your autoresponder set up and ready to go, but you don't have any traffic?

There are several low cost, quick solutions than can bring you the traffic you need.

Pay Per Click

A 'pay per click' campaign is the marketer’s number one choice for generating leads fast. Why? First, you only have to invest a minimum of time and effort into setting up your advertising and, once you're done, you can get results near real-time.

Second, you have control over the targeting of your campaign. This is very important. You want your ads to reach only the most likely prospects, and pay per click marketing assures you of this because you control which search terms trigger your ad.

The best place to begin: Google Adwords Google Adwords is popular because it works. It is also very cheap to get started. You pay just $5 to set up an account and, after this, you pay only for the clicks your ad receives. You have maximum control over the amount you're willing to spend on any given keyword.

You are also allowed to set a "daily budget" to limit the amount of clicks you pay for per day. If Google over-delivers clicks for any reason, your account is automatically credited the balance.

In order to get started with Adwords, you need to generate a list of target keywords or phrases for your market. For example, let's say you have a list devoted to guitar playing. Your first step should take you to Overture's Search Inventory Tool at http://inventory.overture.com/ .

You could start with the broad search term, "guitar", and collect additional targeted phrases from there such as "learn guitar", "learn guitar chord" and "learn guitar online".

These are great terms to start with, but you also need to double check what's going on over at Google. Overture's numbers give a good estimate of the general search frequency of terms online, but their results do not include Google data. Therefore, in your next step, you’ll log in to your Adwords account and create test ads for the terms you’ve collected so far.

Once you've done this, Google allows you to use their keyword suggestion tool. This tool analyzes your chosen keywords and produces a list of similar search terms which were done on the Google network.

Now that you've got a decent list of targeted keywords, all you need to do is set up ad for each one and direct the links over to your opt-in page. Your ads might look something like the following:

Learn Guitar Online Subscribe to our free ezine and pick up guitar tips and tricks.

Notice I used one of the key phrases as the headline in this example. Most advertisers engage in this practice as a general rule. Studies have shown response rates improve when searchers see their search terms highlighted in Adwords ads.

It's a good idea to follow this practice and create individual ads for each key word phrase, using the terms as headlines in each one.

There is an art to writing Adwords and you may need to practice and tweak your ads a bit before you get it right. Pay attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation when you compose your ads. Google does monitor these elements and will suspend your ad even if you’ve got a capital letter out of place by mistake.

Remember that this is just a quick start guide to using pay per click for lead generation. Google Adwords does have a learning curve attached to it. If you require additional help, you should consider signing up for an expert tutorial.

Setting Up An Autoresponder

Mark Abrahams — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:45:00 +0000

Setting Up An Autoresponder

In order to collect email addresses and send out messages to those addresses, you'll need what's known as an autoresponder. An autoresponder is simply an advanced mailing list management program.

The reason you need to use an advanced tool should be pretty obvious: imagine you have 1,000 subscribers to your list. You don't want to manage all that email from your desktop email program, right?

Autoresponder software comes in two flavors:

* Remotely hosted

* Hosted "in house" on your site

An "in house" solution is a script you install on your own web host. The benefit to this is that you control your list at all times. You don't have to worry about a third party service going under and taking your list down with it. On the other hand, these stand alone solutions usually require a large, one-time investment in the software licensing fee. Also, you need some degree of technical competence to install the software and troubleshoot any problems that arise.

Remotely hosted solutions allow the budget marketer to leave the details in someone else's hands, and they are often more cost effective. Just keep in mind some of the drawbacks mentioned above and perform your due diligence before investing in a third party service.

Once you've chosen a solution, list set up is straightforward. You'll get a piece of html code automatically generated for you to cut and paste onto your web page. This will create the "subscribe" box where visitors enter their name and email in order to join your list.

All of your additional list management tasks will reside in an administration area where you can compose messages, format them for personalization and set the timing for when you want them delivered.

There are a lot of advanced features in an autoresponder that you can use to customize your messages, but these vary. Your best bet is to contact your autoresponder hosting service or the software developer if you've purchased a stand-alone solution. Most vendors are happy to help you get started and may also provide set up and installation services for an additional fee.

That's it for today's lesson!

Email Marketing Secrets

Mark Abrahams — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:17:00 +0000

Every business needs a low cost way to reach targeted customers. Email marketing is by far one of the most effective and inexpensive methods of advertising available to you.

The benefits:

1. Direct communication with prospects and existing customers

2. Plenty of room for your message. Your space isn’t limited when you can send to your own list

3. Facilitates testing and tracking. You can experiment with new approaches to boosting conversion rates on a pre-targeted group.

Not only is email marketing very low cost (it’s virtually free once your sales meet your overhead expenses), it is also a super fast way to rake in profits and test new products.

Imagine having your own database of prospects. The results of your marketing efforts are doubled when you’ve captured these prospects. The bulk of long-term business profits come from repeat sales and repeat customers. The only way to acquire a repeat customer is to stay in contact with him.

Constant communication is your ticket to building trust and credibility. A new customer always feels hesitation when engaging in a relationship with an unknown business. Yet, if you communicate with that customer on a consistent basis, you soon overcome their reservations about doing business with you. You come to know each other and build a bond of familiarity.

If you’re ever in doubt about the value of list building, ask yourself this question: “What would I rather do? Spend all of my resources seeking out one-time customers over and over again, or build a relationship with a large pool of existing customers who trust me and are responsive to my offers?”

There are right ways and wrong ways of doing email marketing. As you go through this 7 day course, you’ll discover the fundamentals for making your campaigns a success. You’ll also learn how to get started if you’re new to the concept.

Product Creation Conclusion

Mark Abrahams — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:36:00 +0000

It's a fact: smart marketers do all they can to get the maximum amount of profit and shelf-life out of their products.

After you've added all the value that you can to your total package and run the gamut of about 6 months of sales, it's time to start looking for additional ways to squeeze revenue from your product before "retiring" it.

Now, don't take the word "retire" literally.

You don't have to shelve the product. However, most information products have a popularity life-cycle of about 3 to 6 months. You'll probably be on the way to creating more products during that time, but you've still got to maximize the revenue you get out of each one. There are ways to rejuvenate a product past its prime, and we'll talk about those methods today.

Squeezing Maximum Revenue from Each Product

In order to squeeze more profit out of each product, you must add more value. In Day Six we covered several ways to do this. Keep in mind that you don't have to pull all the stops at once. You can revamp your product package with new bonuses, extra material, special buyer's discounts and a lot more even months after first launch.

The end of your product life-cycle is the time to aim for a final marketing push - especially in terms of joint ventures and e-zine advertising aimed at squeezing in any gaps in the market you may have missed the first time around.

Resale Rights

You might consider offering resale rights to your product after a period of time. This is the point, generally, when you aren't too concerned with competition or simply decide to stop marketing the product yourself.

If your product is hot and has sold well, you should have no problem acquiring prospects interested in buying up resale licenses.

You can sell the licenses individually or you can arrange for the product to be included in a package or membership site. Now, why would you want to do this? It's not just about the up front money. It's about creating a marketing "loop".

Once your product is available in a site of this size and popularity, you'll get a huge boost in traffic as new people discover your URL. This means you'll get more visitors, more newsletter sign ups and more prospects for your next batch of products. You're squeezing money out of that old product without even selling it!

Free Distribution

In a similar case to the above, you could decide to release the rights to the book and allow it to be distributed freely - let other site owners download it and use it as a bonus to include in their packages and give to their newsletter subscribers. This will create another viral marketing loop that will bring in extra traffic and revenue.

Here are some good places to submit your e-books:

http://www.free-ebooks.net/submit.html
http://www.ebookdirectory.com/
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/

Once you've taken these steps, you can safely "retire" your product, knowing that you've pulled out the maximum amount of profit and free advertising it can generate for you.

Conclusion

Creating your own products is easy. Once you get the hang of it, it's a snap to turn them out - sometimes faster than your schedule can accommodate.

Owning your own product is the quickest and most effective way to take control of your business and your profits. So, re-read this course and refer to it whenever you need guidance during your first trial. You'll have your own product ready to go in no time. Good luck!

Product Creation Part 6

Mark Abrahams — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:05:00 +0000

Congratulations! You have a finished product. You can take a much deserved break.

But, you're not done yet! If you want maximum profit, you'll never rest from tweaking and improving everything you do. So, today, we're going to talk about how to add even more value to your product.

Adding Value to the Product

What do you think you can charge, realistically, for your product as it stands now? $34.95? $97? $197?

The fact is that you could very easily charge any of these amounts and make the sale if you add enough perceived value to your product.

The very best way to up the perceived value of your product is through good copywriting. Are you surprised I said that? It's true. Before you start adding bonuses or any other material to your package, make sure you have a killer sales letter. At least half the job of sales is in managing the prospect's perceptions. If you convince them that your product is worth $197, then that is exactly what you can get for it.

Now, once you have your copy down pat, you can begin adding other items of value to your product.

What are some of the ways to do this?

The most common approach is to add a series of relevant bonuses - these are usually e-books you've acquired through resale rights purchases or had custom created for you by a ghostwriter.

Bonuses don't have to be e-books, though. You can offer software, images, audio, discounts on related products or services and whole lot more. It depends on your topic. For example, if you have a book about healthy eating, you can right over to http://www.freewarefiles.com/ and snag a copy of calorie counting or menu making software and offer that.

You could also use that software as a 'template' to send to freelance programmer. Tell him that you want something similar for your product and have him brand it with your logo and graphics. Piece of cake.

Let's talk about discounts and memberships for a moment. It would be pretty easy to work out a joint venture with the owner of a complementary health or weight loss site.

You could arrange for your customers to receive a discount on that site's products, or a free membership, if it's a membership site.

You should also consider offering updates to your product.

If you happen to sell something which could benefit from yearly revision (an e-mail database, for example), then you can add to the perceived value by promising free, lifetime upgrades to each customer.

Now, I've saved the best for last. One of the absolute best ways to boost up the attractiveness is to offer access to: You.

You must make yourself available to answer customer questions, guarantee timely refunds and top notch support. There is nothing that turns buyers off faster than the perception that you just want their money, and that they'll be left hanging after the sale. Place your contact information and your invitation to interaction prominently on your site and on the cover page of your product.

Product Creation Part 5

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:25:00 +0000

Welcome back to Day Five. There is just one more step for you to take before your product is "complete" :protecting your work.

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation out there concerning intellectual property and copyright. There are also quite a few unscrupulous people who would have no problem stealing your product and passing it off as their own.

One place where this happens frequently is on Ebay. Sellers (granted, some mistakenly) take information products which do not have resale rights attached to them and put them up for sale.

It is rare to see someone go so far as to steal your entire sales page and product, but I have seen it occur on a few occasions. Usually, a stern warning or a cease and desist letter from an attorney will suffice.

However, you'll want more protection for your work if you have to go to court. Also, it is just a good idea generally to copyright your work. It is something to be proud of and you enjoy numerous benefits as the holder of copyright.

Copyrighting E-Books and Digital Products

The first thing you need to know is that an e-book, piece of software, image or audio/video file is considered, by the law, to be a digital work. Any work published and distributed digitally falls under this domain. Technically, a digital work is not considered a new category under the law.

Further, there is still a lot of discussion in the legal arena about the limits of fair use in terms of a consumer's right to print or distribute a digital work.

If at all possible, I would suggest that you file a traditional application for copyright in addition to an application to copyright a digital format of your work. This means you should print out your books, put your media on cd, etc. and mail in these 'hard copies' to apply for a regular copyright.

The reason is that the laws protecting digital work actually vary across jurisdictions. This has to do with how the works are classified in these jurisdictions.

For example, a multimedia work is considered non-composite (not containing multiple copyrightable entities) in most jurisdictions. Yet, a computer game (which obviously includes text, images, music and more) is considered a composite work. The laws don't always follow common sense.

We will stick to the subject of e-books for the rest of our discussion on copyright.

Regardless of what format your work takes, it is always a good idea to consult an attorney. You may also want to check out some books at the library to familiarize yourself with the basics of the law.

Copyrighting E-Books

The U.S. Copyright Office offers a wealth of information which will assist you in obtaining your very first copyright. Take some time to browse through the site and read the section on literary works. This is the category under which you'll file for copyright.

The term "literary", in this case, refers both to fiction and non-fiction, though it doesn't sound like it. Don't worry, though - your e-book is considered a literary work even if you aren't Shakespeare!

The form you will file will be either Form TX or Short Form TX. Here are the basic guidelines for which one to use and when:

Short Form TX

· You are the only author and copyright owner of this work, and

· The work was not made for hire, and

· The work is completely new (does not contain a substantial amount of material that has been previously published or registered or is in the public domain)

We can infer that, for every other case, you need to use Form TX. If you follow my product creation formula using public domain material (a very popular approach these days), you'll definitely file with the short form.

Two Types of Works

Did you know you have more than one option for how you class your work? You can file a copyright for each product you create or you can file a copyright on collected works. A collected work is a category which contains multiple works copyrighted within one entity. For example, songwriters and poets can copyright multiple works at a time this way.

Each song or poem enjoys protection under the master copyright. So, you could follow this method and create, say, "The Collected Works of Joe Marketer" - under which would fall your individual product titles.

The advantage of doing it this way is mostly about time and cost savings. You only file one form and pay one fee to copyright multiple works at a time. You will then file as usual each time you want to add to the collection.

What You'll Need When You File

There are a couple of elements you'll need to pull together into the package you mail off. You'll need a $30 non-refundable filing fee. You'll need a completed Form TX or Short Form TX; and, you'll need at least one full copy of the work(s) to be copyrighted.

Unpublished works require only one copy. If you are filing a work which includes public domain material in its creation, you may need copies of that material as well as additional copies of your original work. Check with the office or with an attorney to be sure.

As far as format goes, you can send you work in on standard printer paper or on whichever media represents your intended distribution method for the work. Use printed, paper copies for e-books.

You will tie all of this together into a large envelope and mail it off to:

Library of Congress Copyright Office 101 Independence Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20559-6000

Your registration becomes effective on the day the Copyright Office receives and processes all of the materials.

Product Creation Part 4

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:15:00 +0000

Product packaging is an important but overlooked step. Sometimes a great e-book cover is all it takes to turn a poorly selling product into a super, profit-pulling monster.

Putting the Product Together:

PDF

There are two common formats for e-books: PDF and EXE. PDF is the more commonly used of the two. However, there is a lot more you can do with EXE files.

You can place multimedia, flash and other elements into EXE files. So, why don't people use them? There are two reasons: first, a lot of people online have been trained to be wary of executable files - using PDF is just a matter of making the customer feel safe. The second reason: Mac users. Mac users can't open Windows EXE files. PDF is the alternative that allows you to reach every user in the market.

Creating a PDF document is fairly easy. You can use a standard editor like MS Word. All you do after that is run the document through a converter to get your PDF file. There are several solutions on the market today:

http://www.clicktoconvert.com
http://www.fastpdf.com
http://www.pdf995.com
http://createpdf.adobe.com

Please note that some of these services are free and others require a one time fee or monthly subscription.

Graphics

You'll want some attractive graphics for your product. You should hire someone to create an e-book cover for you in addition to matching graphics for your sales page. Everything should flow and match up. You're creating a total package here from the product to the sales page.

Here are some of the services and tools I can recommend:

http://ecovers.info/
http://www.ebookgraphics.com/
http://ebookwow.com/
http://armandmoringenerator.com/

How Should I Format My Book?

The standard font size for the innards of most e-books is between 12 and 16 points. A little bit of strange ju-ju goes on in the PDF conversion process, so be forewarned that what you see on your screen in your text editor is not exactly what you'll get in the final pdf document.

You should design with readability in mind - paying special attention to those with visual disabilities and also to mitigating the eye strain that comes from reading long documents on a computer screen.

Make sure you have nice, bold headline for each section and include a table of contents at the beginning of the book.

One great way to make the inside of the book more attractive is to use a template for formatting.

Here are some great e-book templates for use in MS Word and other programs in the family of MS Office products:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx
http://www.templatezone.com/microsoft-templates/officeready-pro.asp
http://www.fxstyle-templates.com/ (as part of a package)

You can and should use color, bold text, headlines and other elements to spice up your formatting. Remember that your product is a pure, visual presentation. Even after you've made the sale, your customer must be satisfied with the product. So, give them a great looking document.

An e-book with stellar design is not only easier to read, it carries an increased impression of value. The customer will be much more satisfied when you "wow' their eyes.

Product Creation Part 3

Mark Abrahams — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:15:00 +0000

Today may very well be the most important day of this course. We aren't covering any special 'tricks' or marketing insights. Instead, we're on the hunt for content.

No content = no product.

Sourcing Content

The quickest and cheapest way to source content is to go into the public domain. Before we discuss public domain requirements, here is a short list of sites to add to your favorites:

http://www.archive.org/
http://www.creativecommons.org/
http://www.promo.net/pg/
http://www.blackmask.com/

So, what can you find in the public domain? Anything!

You'll find texts, audio, images, stock video, software and everything under the sun. A large portion of this material is "fair use", but be forewarned that not all of it is free of copyright protection. At Creative Commons, for example, there are new works being entered under a public license, so there will be some restrictions on those works.

Let's talk about 'fair use' for a moment.

The Fair Use Doctrine was not a part of the original copyright law, but was drafted through numerous court decisions and finally codified in Section 107 of the copyright law. This establishes the rights of other to work with copyrighted material. It's important to be aware of this because you need to understand the rights granted to you by the public domain and the limitations you might encounter if the copyright status of a work you find is in question.

Not all of the works entered into the public domain database are free and clear of restrictions.

Here are 'four factors to be considered in determining whether the use of a work is far', according to the law:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. The nature of the copyrighted work;

3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

These guidelines will assist you if any work you encounter during your search happens to have some restrictions on it - or if you find that you need additional content and can't find anything in the public domain to fill in the gaps.

It's best to just bypass anything that isn't fully public domain, but I've included this here in case you encounter a unique case during your search.

Now, for the definition of public domain - you'll find that many sites refer to materials as "primarily public domain". This is legal maneuvering which is intended to give a nod to the possible restrictions we mentioned before. A true public domain work is information open to the public for free use, including copying, distributing and modification free of charge.

When do works pass into the public domain?

Currently, works published seventy-five years ago are considered to be public domain. Works published from 1924-1963 may be public domain if the copyright was not renewed. Anything else should be considered protected under the law.

What can you do with public domain material? Anything! You can claim entire texts, reformat them and publish them as e-books. You can use public domain texts as bonuses. You can build web sites and products around them. For example, take a look at www.scienceofgettingrich.net.

This entire site was based upon the public domain work by Wallace Wattles called "The Science of Getting Rich". It has spawned a plethora of copycat marketers who went out and find additional public domain works related to the subject of prosperity and new age manifestation techniques.

I recommend hitting the major archives I listed at the beginning of this lesson during your first search.

There is a lot to wade through at these sites and you'll be wise to familiarize yourself with the navigation, search functions and general availability of subjects.

If you can't find exactly what you're looking for at the above sites, then you can use a Google search to ferret out more resources. Type in whatever you're looking for and tack a +"public domain" onto the search.

Meanwhile , here are some additional, niche-related sites with public domain material:

http://www.pdimages.com
http://www.pdmusic.org
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books

Product Launching Part 2

Mark Abrahams — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:52:00 +0000

You've already seen that potential products exist all around you. The next step is to choose a good medium for research.

Many marketers teach you to hit the keyword research tools first, but I believe this is going about things backwards.

It is much better to pinpoint existing markets or potential markets first - get your idea and your target group in focus first, then check the statistics to see how many searches are done per month on relevant terms.

Why? Essentially, all keyword data tells you is what people are searching for and with what frequency. This does indicate existing markets, but it doesn't tell you exactly how hot that market is, or give you an idea of the types of products being purchased...

A much better place to look is in the trade and special interest magazines you find right on the shelf at your local bookstore.

Generating Ideas: A Case Study

I have in my hands right now an art magazine called "Expressions"...

Each issue of Expressions covers a handful of crafts project, and features top notch artists teaching their trade. At the back of the magazine are the mail order advertisements. You can learn a lot by browsing through these.

For example, there is an ad here for pre-made stamps.

This ad has run in every issue of Expressions for the last year. Obviously, the merchant must be doing very well in this niche and pulling enough revenue to keep on advertising. This is a hot market - as are all the other craft supply niches. However, we can also say that "how to" art information is a hot market as well.

What type of craft project product could we create?

Well, let's take a look and see what's already out there in the public domain. If we find enough material, we'll have a product in no time. We're going to let the product come to us by browsing for content and thinking of ways to piece it together.

My first step takes me over to a search for "art" on Archive.Org. Wow! There are dozens of results here, including books, screensavers and freeware. As I scroll down the page, I see something that catches my eye: "Do-It-Yourself Sand Brownies Craft Kit".

Something like this would be perfect to turn into a product. I could bundle this with an e-book on using sand in craftwork (which I would find via public domain or by hiring out someone to write it for me), or I could look for similar "Do It Yourself" kits on this site and compile all of them into an e-book I'd title "Ten Great Do It Yourself Crafts for Kids".

Now, that was easy wasn't it?

This is one way of approaching product creation. Let the idea come to you as you browse through general public domain content sites. You can generate your ideas and create you product at the same time simply by making use of what's on hand.

If you're a bit pickier than this, then another approach is to come up with your idea prior to content sourcing and then going out and searching for the relevant content.

I find this, at times, to be a bit harder to do. It is much easier to create a product by spinning off ideas from what you have in your hands than by getting your heart set on one idea and struggling to make the available content to conform to it.

You might not encounter this problem if your chosen niche falls into a broad or popular category, however.

Essentially, almost anything you can think of can be turned into a product. All you need to do is start thinking in terms of value. You might be wondering how to place value on a product you didn't create from scratch, especially if you employ public domain material. Just remember this: you are doing the work of locating and packaging the information that you sell. You are charging for your time and effort - as well as your own intellectual property: the idea!

Secrets Of Product Creation

Mark Abrahams — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Product creation is your ticket to web profits - profits you control. No more waiting around to get paid as an affiliate. When you create and sell your own products, you set the parameters on price and pay day.

The big marketers will always tell you that owning your own products is the way to go. What they don't always tell you is how to create products which sell well, and which are easy for you to put together if you aren't a writer.

They also neglect to tell you the best ways to brainstorm your products ideas and how to turn the idea into a realistic item of value you can sell.

Well, today we'll begin to change all of that...

You're going to learn how to generate product ideas as easily as turning on a faucet. You'll also learn where you can find ready made content to create your product, and cut down on production time.

This method aims to help you create your first product with a minimum of effort. You'll especially love this if you hate to write content yourself.

So, what's the first step to creating a product?

The first step is generating the idea... This is the area we'll tackle today.

Thinking like a Creator

It's time to learn how to think like a product creator. If you want to generate more ideas than you know what to do with, then you need to grasp one concept more than any other:

Everything is product.

Granted, not everything has saleable value, but everything is a product in some form or other. We live in a world of ideas manifested into the physical. Everything you see around you began as an idea in someone else's mind.

It gets even better, though. Ideas are not the only saleable "things" you have at your disposal. You can also sell your time, your energy, your research ability and a lot more. No, I don't mean in the traditional sense. All you get for selling time is a job! But, let's say that you want to put a price on an e-book you've created from public domain material.

How do you price a document that contains information people can find for free if they really wanted to put out the effort?

Easy! You charge for the time effort that you put out to create a more easily accessible copy. The price of the book is the price you exact for your resources, it's that simple.

When you think like a product creator, you see the value and the opportunity in everything around you. Now, how can you use this to your advantage and start generating realistic ideas?

1. Focus Your Intent

What type of product do you want to create? Are you in the mood to produce a book? A piece of software? Maybe some audio interviews or video tutorials?

2. Start visualizing your market

You don't need to know your exact market yet, but begin thinking in general terms about their interests, their buying power and how likely they are to buy online.

3. Translate what you see into potential titles

This is a powerful way to find the product in an idea.

There are dozens of standard titles internet marketers turn to when they write their book titles. Keep them in mind apply them onto what you encounter each day.

Here are a few examples:

"Ten Things You Must Know About..." "Quick and Easy Ways to.." "The Complete Guide to.." "How to.."

Here is a good example of this method in action.

Let's say you're out and about on your daily routine. You take the bus and you overhear two passengers talking about their hair. One of them expresses dismay over her hair color. She got a very bad dye job. Not only that, but there's a party she has to go to that night, and she doesn't know what to do. She wants to fix her hair, but doesn't have the time to go back to the stylist.

You start to think about this. Surely, there must be some way she could fix her hair at home.

Even a partial touch up would look better than the mess her hair is in at the moment. Now, you think, "what if I could research this and find some solutions a person in her situation could apply at home?".

I could create a book called "Ten Sure Fire Cures for a Bad Dye Job You Can Apply This Afternoon, So You'll Be Fabulous Tonight". Bingo! Product idea!

Start practicing this way of thinking each day.

It's your ticket to generating one hot product idea after another. Pretty soon you'll have so many ideas you won't have time to implement all of them.

Press Releases

Mark Abrahams — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:55:00 +0000

Press releases are another overlooked but very powerful traffic tool.

A PR release works a lot like a syndicated article, but the distribution channels may be different. PR releases tend to rank well in Google. They are also frequently picked up as content sources for RSS feeds.

Writing Your Press Release

Writing a press release is different from writing an article.

Your focus is on announcing your business, its objectives and the benefits you provide to consumers. You'll want to pay extra attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation.

The standards for press releases are stricter than in other environments. Your copy should be short: about 300-400 words and written in a clear, professional and journalistic style.

If you need assistance, considering hiring someone to write the release for you. You might also want to contact the editorial department of the site you're submitting to because they'll often help you edit your release until it meets their standards.

Some PR sites will do this for free, but most charge a small fee for the service. This shouldn't dissuade you, though. Any time you pay for editing, you’ll get a release which qualifies for distribution to major portals such as Yahoo! News.

Sites for Online Press Release Submission

http://www.prweb.com/
http://www.prfree.com/
http://www.free-press-release.com/
http://www.ereleases.com/
http://www.internetnewsbureau.com/inbnewsletter/

Article Distribution

Mark Abrahams — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 16:55:00 +0000

Article distribution is a time honored and reliable method of traffic generation.

It is similar to viral product promotion in the sense that your links will spread across multiple channels. Your job is to write high quality articles that other site owners want to use to buff up their content offerings.

When you submit an article, you remain the copyright holder.

All you're doing is granting permission for reprints. Each article you submit should have what's known as a byline or resource box. This is just a brief piece of text at the end of your article where you write a short "about the author" description of you and/or your web site and include your URLs.

Articles can net you great exposure in more than one way.

You'll definitely gain exposure through reprints when other marketers use your article for web site or e-zine content. You'll also gain leverage in the search engines! The more articles you submit on the same theme, the more often your articles will come up as top listings for related keywords.

This is a bonus that many people overlook. Try to compose your articles with keyword optimization in mind and see what happens!

Here's a quick reference list of sites to submit your articles to:

http://submityourarticle.com/
http://www.thephantomwriters.com/
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/submit.asp
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles/
http://www.ideamarketers.com/
http://www.web-source.net/syndicator_submit.htm

Mix and Match Your Bylines

Once you begin submitting articles and realize their power, you'll probably come up with all sorts of creative ideas.

You don't always have to link to your main index page in your byline. You can link instead to your newsletter opt-in page or even insert your autoresponder address with subscription instructions.

You can also use articles as a type of "pre-sell" for various affiliate products.

If there's a reason you aren't collecting leads and would prefer to send traffic direct to the merchant's page, your article can serve as the pre-sell content you'd normally send out to a list, but with the potential for reaching a broader audience.

RSS Feeds/Dynamic Content

Mark Abrahams — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:25:00 +0000

RSS Feeds produce content that the search engines love.

If you're having a hard time maintaining your rankings, RSS might provide the solution you need.

Targeted content attracts the search spiders, but new content keeps them visiting your site frequently. Placing an RSS feed on your site provides the perfect balance between static content geared towards keyword dominance and dynamic content designed to generate repeat visits to your site. You could say that dynamic content makes your site "stickier".

You might be wondering whether dynamic content could negatively affect your rankings.

After all, if you've already established a presence on specific keywords, why dilute that rapidly changing content? Well, the good news is that you don't have to plug in just any content into your site. RSS has grown rapidly and your options are broad. You can, in fact, create feeds targeted to your niche keywords. This will pull in content related to your site theme, and only that.

How to Get Started

First things first, it's time to seek out some feeds! Here is a list to get you started:

http://www.syndic8.com/
http://www.feedster.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/rss
http://www.feedroll.com/
http://www.2rss.com/index.php

Now, how do you get those feeds onto your site? The method can vary from service to service.

Usually, you'll be given a snippet of code to paste into your web page. This code will automatically pull in the content for you. Your job from that point onward is to decide where on the page you want to place the code. You can create a separate directory for this if you wish. You can also feature the feeds on your index page in side bars or even as content for the main body of the page. Then, just sit back and watch the magic ranking-boosting power of dynamic content.

Add an Extra Layer

You don't have to limit yourself to syndicating other people's content. You can also syndicate your articles. This tactic is equivalent to traditional article distribution on steroids. You no longer have to wait for your content to get picked up by human editors.

Further, you have a great deal of control over targeting. You can syndicate your content only to those sites which match your business category. This will ensure that your articles come up only on relevant sites.

Syndicating your own content is a little bit trickier than syndicating other people’s content.

You need to implement an RSS feed on your site and provide other webmasters with your piece of "syndication script" to paste onto their web pages. The heart of your RSS feeds lives in an .xml file. However, your syndication module is usually created in another language like PHP or .ASP. PHP is probably the "easiest" for a newbie to start with.

The following resources will help you get your feet wet:

*Desktop solution for managing and formatting your syndicated content http://www.icontent-delivery.com/synmain/

What is RSS? *A comprehensive tutorial on RSS from the developers http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

Yes, the learning curve for RSS syndication is steeper than most other marketing tools you've used in the past. The effort is worth it, though. Dynamic content is the wave of the future, so don't get left behind!

Joint Ventures

Mark Abrahams — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:13:00 +0000

Joint ventures allow you to capitalize on existing, targeted traffic streams. This means more traffic for you and your JV partner without spending extra money on advertising.

In any JV deal, you're always trading resources of equal value. For example, you want extra traffic and more subscribers. In exchange, your JV partner might want to present an offer to your subscribers, or perhaps get a free copy of one of your products.

Who Should I Partner With?

Always partner with businesses that are complementary to yours in some way.

If you sell model airplanes, don't do a JV with a site devoted to weight loss pills! This is obvious, of course, but it bears mentioning just to emphasize the point.

Complementary sites are sites within or closely related to your niche, and are not in competition with you. It's ok to shoot for a JV with a site that sells a similar product, just don't attempt this with a site selling the exact same product. Again, this is probably obvious but some people have actually tried this before!

How to Approach JV Partners

The first rule: Don't be shy!

If you believe you can set up a true "win-win" deal, contact your potential partners as soon as possible. Procrastination just leaves money on the table.

The second rule: Personalize your correspondence and make sure you understand your potential partner’s business.

It's always a good idea to complement your prospect and let them know what it is about their business impresses you – then, follow that up with information about your business and why you feel the two of you have a potential match.

The third rule: Offer a "killer" deal.

If your potential partner has a successful site, it's likely he or she receives requests for JV deal all the time. In order to win him/her over, you need to stand out from the crowd and offer a deal above and beyond the usual. This means, for example, offering them higher commissions or even giving more than you receive.

The fourth rule: Be polite!

If you get turned down, simply move on to the next prospect. There could be a number of reasons your JV proposal was turned down this time. You can always approach with a new deal in the future as long as you don't burn any bridges.

Viral Products

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:22:00 +0000

Viral products are not just traffic generators but lead generators!

What is a viral product?

A traditional viral product is an e-book which you give away to your subscribers as well as to e-book distribution sites. Included in your e-book is your web site url and, if you choose, an embedded subscription box that allows readers to join your list directly from the e-book.

Why Are Viral Products Effective?

The reason these viral products are so effective is because the distribution model allows your URL to propagate across the web in ways you could never imagine, and without any work or expense on your part.

The fact of the matter is that other web site owners just like you are hungry for content. When they don't want to do the work of creating a report themselves, they simply go out and find a free, pre-written one and offer it to their visitors. If your e-book is good enough, you'll soon have hundreds of sites offering your work to their visitors. You get the benefit of their traffic for free.

Where Can I Distribute My E-Book?

Seek out as many appropriate distribution sites as you can. Here is a list to get you started:

http://www.ebookdirectory.com/
http://www.free-ebooks.net/
http://www.fictionwise.com/
http://www.mindlikewater.com/

How about some really clever ways to distribute your e-book? Go beyond the traditional outlets and submit your e-book to popular general purpose web sites like Tucows.com and Download.com.

Another tactic which could be highly effective, but somewhat risky, is to submit your e-book into the public domain.

You would have to be willing to cede your copyright and risk someone else rebranding your book as their own. If you're up to the challenge, take a look at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) and Digital Book Index (http://www.digitalbookindex.com/)

Maintaining Impact

If something works well once, repeat it! Unleashing one viral product will spike your traffic. Releasing dozens of viral products will give you a nice, long term flood of new visitors.

Viral products can be short term or long term traffic generators depending on how you approach them. If you can put yourself on a schedule of releasing at least one free, viral e-book per month, you'll have an excellent no-cost traffic tool on your hands to bring in a continual flow of new prospects.

Reciprocal Linking

Mark Abrahams — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:07:00 +0000

Reciprocal linking is a powerful, but often overlooked way to generate traffic - not just from your link partners but also from the search engines.

You're probably already familiar with reciprocal links, but here is a brief definition:

A reciprocal link is a link swap between two web sites. You place your link partner's link on your web site, and in return they place your link on their web site.

Who Should You Partner Up With?

Some link traders are fixated on exchanging links with high traffic sites.

High traffic sites are great, but you should always consider a link exchange with a site that offers high-quality and complementary content, no matter how much traffic they receive. You should focus on targeting rather than numbers.

The more highly targeted your link partner, the more likely their visitors are to click on your link and visit your site. Also, there is a synergy that develops between link partners. If you're a better marketer than your link partner, your traffic boost can affect their search engine rankings. You can boost them higher, and this means that both sites' traffic will increase symbiotically.

The Search Ranking Connection

Reciprocal links can boost your ranking in the search engines. How?

Remember that the engines rely on keywords to determine relevance. When you optimize your links to include your keywords, you effectively increase the frequency with which your site registers on those keywords.

The way this works is somewhat complicated. The most you need to know is that popular engines like Google base their results on a recommendation model. Sites are clustered together not just by the keywords in their meta tags and content, but also by their relationship to each other.

In Google's eyes, sites which point to each other make up a type of "mini-net" or "authoritative hub" for the keywords in question. You might get a better grasp on this by visualizing a group of sites strung together like a small spider's web being pulled up in ranking as a group, rather than individually.

Finding Link Partners

Finding link partners takes a little bit of work, but it's worth it. Most of your effort goes towards evaluating each potential partner and the relevance of their content.

If you want to search manually, all you need to do is use a standard search or directory search on your favorite engine. I recommend using Google for two features it boasts which come in handy for finding partner sites: the 'backwards links' feature and 'show similar sites' feature.

The backwards links data will show you who else links to your target site.

This is a good way to collect extra sites which might be relevant to yours and worth pursuing a link exchange with. The "show similar links" feature gives you a listing of sites which may or not link to your target site, but which Google believes to be similar in content and keyword relevance.

If you want to automate your search, there are numerous software solutions available. Some of the most popular ones include Zeus, Arelis and Linkalizer.

These tools collect vast amounts of information by following site links he same way search engine spiders do. You enter the URL of the site that you think is an ideal link partner and the software crawls that site in search of outbound links to reciprocal link partners. It also retrieves additional helpful data such as the webmaster's contact address and the URL of the link submission page if one is available.

Tying It All Together

When it comes to reciprocal linking, more isn't necessarily better.

At least 20 to 30 good links will improve your ranking and your traffic dramatically. If you want to rely on reciprocal linking to generate the bulk of your traffic, you trade as many links as you want – but be forewarned, too many links can negatively affect your search engine ranking.

Large portals like Yahoo! and CNN benefit from having thousands of links simply because the sites are so general the relevance factor is ambiguous.

A small business niche site, however, can't possibly be relevant to thousands of other sites. Focus your links on relevant, high-quality sites and don't worry about gathering up a massive list of reciprocal links.

Pay Per Click

Mark Abrahams — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:02:00 +0000

If you want to generate traffic quickly, nothing beats Pay Per Click advertising.

Pay Per Click advertising is what's known as a "pay for performance" advertising model. You bid for the keywords you want, and you only pay your bid amount when someone clicks on your advertisement.

Google Adwords is the network of choice among PPC marketers. However, there are several other services you might consider adding to your arsenal once you've mastered Google:

Overture: http://www.overture.com Find What: http://www.findwhat.com Mamma: http://www.mamma.com Kanoodle: http://www.kanoodle.com Sprinks: http://www.sprinks.com

Why is PPC advertising so effective?

1. PPC allows targeting. You bid only on the phrases you want. You can laser target your market and your advertising to the most appropriate prospects.

2. PPC creates fast results. You don't have to wait months to get your site listed in the search engines. You can get your link out within minutes and see results within a matter of hours.

3. PPC opens the door for budget conscious advertisers. You have full control over how much you bid and how much spend per day.

PPC advertising is also multi-purpose. You can use it for just about anything you want to promote. You can promote your web site, your opt-in landing page for mailing list sign ups and affiliate programs. You should definitely consider PPC for driving visitors to an opt-in page.

This is the fastest way to generate a boatload of new leads and subscribers.

It's also a clever tool for building out your down line in MLM programs and two-tier affiliates programs.

Each PPC network has different rules about site promotion. Google allows you to link directly to merchant pages if you're an affiliate. However, the Overture network requires advertisers to direct traffic to their own web site. In either case, it's actually a better idea to direct traffic to your own site, even if the end of the conversion chain is designed to lead the visitor to a different site. You have a lot more room to pre-sell and educate hesitant consumers that way.

You can accomplish a lot of testing and tracking with PPC campaigns.

There is no better way to run split tests on your pages to tweak your ad copy and your offer. It is also a very effective tool for site optimization. Once you discover which keywords are pulling best in your PPC campaign, you can optimize your site for those terms and shoot for a good search engine ranking on them.

PPC advertising should be one of your primary traffic tools. However, keep in mind that it represents a short term strategy. You should use it for quick boosts in traffic, to collect subscribers and to test your sales pages.

Unless you have an unlimited budget, you probably don’t want to run a campaign on a continual basis.