There are a lot of different blog builders out there that are inexpensive and perhaps even free, allowing you to have your own domain name, upload images and even RSS feeds but what they don’t offer you is much freedom to create a blog that is completely your own or ensure that your blog will even be found.
Free blogs can give you the template to start your own blog, but often times you do not get much of a choice as to how it will look and it ends up looking just like everyone else who created a free blog through the service.
With so many blogs starting up each day, 15.5 million blogs according to Business Week, you may wonder how your blog will be found in the cyberspace jungle. For a nominal monthly fee, a professional blog builder will set up your blog with much more than the basic cookie cutter template, one size does not fit all blogs. Blogs gain a reputation and following for their uniqueness and if your restaurant review blog looks like everyone else’s restaurant review blog, how is anyone suppose to find your blog needle in a haystack, so to speak?
Quality blog builders offer unique tools to improve your blog. If your blog is built for your business, you need your blog to be discovered. Business blogs are essential to improving your current business’s website placement on Google search. Some tools you will appreciate that come with creating a blog through a quality blog builder:
Stats tracker
Ability to post blogs from your cell phone
Email through your blog
Make money through sponsored affiliates just by posting ads
Technical support
More options in configurations and more options in advertising
And more options in the amount of traffic you can receive
A lot of your time is invested in your blog. If you are going to build your blog right from the get go, why make your first impression with the online world less than perfect? Get a quality blog now instead of wishing you had.
About the Author
About the author:Melissa Peterman is a web content producer for Innuity. For more information about how to blog builder or create a blog , go to Type Pad.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Simple Ways to Get Repeat Visitors to Your Blog
All successful blogs depend on returning visitors to account for a majority of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they will have. The credibility issue just melts away. Give your visitors a good reason to come back often and they will. Even if you don't monetize your blog you still want to maximize your traffic right? Try the following methods:
1) Start a forum or a chat room When you start a forum or a chat room you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.
2) Offer a Free Newsletter Use an Optin form to ask for your visitors name and email. Then you can send a newsletter to them on a regular basis. This allows you to keep in touch with them and encourage more visits to your site. Include valuable information and a "soft sell" approach in the newsletter. Offer promotions. Use the newsletter to attract visitors back to your blog not to direct sell.
3) Carry out polls or surveys Everyone loves to offer their opinion. They love it even more when it is asked for. You should definitely consider adding one or both of these to your blog. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved. Be sure your polls and surveys are strongly relevant to the target market of your blog to keep your visitors interested in finding out the results.
4) Update frequently with fresh content Update your blog frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. You don't have to update every day unless you want your visitors to come back everyday. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. It doesn't have to be anything too complicated. Just make sure to posts interesting thoughts on a regular basis and your visitors will come back to see what's new. For more information on blogs please visit My Blog.
About the Author
John Stevenson runs The New Cash Cow the site that shows you how to make the online income you deserve. Go to The New Cash Cow to learn how you can use my strategy to start growing your bank account today!
1) Start a forum or a chat room When you start a forum or a chat room you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.
2) Offer a Free Newsletter Use an Optin form to ask for your visitors name and email. Then you can send a newsletter to them on a regular basis. This allows you to keep in touch with them and encourage more visits to your site. Include valuable information and a "soft sell" approach in the newsletter. Offer promotions. Use the newsletter to attract visitors back to your blog not to direct sell.
3) Carry out polls or surveys Everyone loves to offer their opinion. They love it even more when it is asked for. You should definitely consider adding one or both of these to your blog. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved. Be sure your polls and surveys are strongly relevant to the target market of your blog to keep your visitors interested in finding out the results.
4) Update frequently with fresh content Update your blog frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. You don't have to update every day unless you want your visitors to come back everyday. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. It doesn't have to be anything too complicated. Just make sure to posts interesting thoughts on a regular basis and your visitors will come back to see what's new. For more information on blogs please visit My Blog.
About the Author
John Stevenson runs The New Cash Cow the site that shows you how to make the online income you deserve. Go to The New Cash Cow to learn how you can use my strategy to start growing your bank account today!
6 Free Ways To Generate A Steady Stream of Traffic To Your Blog
Blogs have become a world-wide phenomenon that has, literally, been turned into an art form. With programs like Blogger and Wordpress, setting up your own blog is super easy, but getting traffic to it can be a little more difficult. However, there are a few things that you can do to get visitors to your blog. Articles: Since a blog revolves around content, it's always a good idea to balance your more personal posts with informative articles. For example, if you have a personal blog focused on your weight lost journey, compose an article about the health benefits of living a healthier lifestyle, then post it on your blog and allow others to reprint it (with your resource box and link of course) to gain incoming links. Another bonus of articles is that they can work to bring you organic traffic and win you higher ratings in the search engines. Fresh Content: One of the most important things you can do to keep a steady flow of traffic going to your blog, is to update it on a regular basis. Ideally, it's best if you update your blog at least 2 or 3 times a week, and even better if you can do it daily. There are a couple of advantages to this; one is that you will gain a following of readers who will continually return to your blog, and two is that you will be feeding the search engines, thus, maintaining your ranking. Building Relationships: Relationship building is a promotional method all its own, the simple reason being, is that by establishing yourself as an expert in the eyes of your readers, you will win their trust. The trust of your readers is a powerful tool, one that should not be taken advantage of. Your visitors go to you in search of answers to their questions, and they value your opinion and recommendations, which means that they are more likely to click your affiliate links and buy from you rather than the competition. Blog Pinging: This method can be used whenever you update your blog, and should become a part of your blogging routine. There are multiple ping directories. All you have to do is visit their website, type in the name of your blog and the URL, then hit ping. The purpose of pinging is that every time you do this, the directory will ping all of the blog directories in its listing to let them know that your blog has been updated.
Feed Burner: By installing a simple, and free, piece of HTML code onto your blog, your readers can subscribe and have new blog posts emailed to them. This is a great notification system, and will let your readers know that they can go to your blog to read new entries. Blog Roll: This is a very easy option to use, and is already built into Wordpress. You simply add the URL's you want, publish them to your site, and they will then show up under the heading "Blog Roll" on the side of your blog. The way to make this work for traffic is to treat it like a link exchange. Simply contact other blog owners and let them know that you have added their blog to your blog roll, and ask for a link in return.
Blog promotion can be done in the same way that you would advertise your website, and the free options are just as good, if not better, than paid. However, if you want to see results you will need to promote your blog on a regular basis, and understand that it will take time and effort to establish it.
About the Author
Mindy Benkert is a successful internet marketer and mom. In her Free E-Course, she shares 10 Proven Ways To Quickly and Easily Promote Your Blog. Sign up today!
Feed Burner: By installing a simple, and free, piece of HTML code onto your blog, your readers can subscribe and have new blog posts emailed to them. This is a great notification system, and will let your readers know that they can go to your blog to read new entries. Blog Roll: This is a very easy option to use, and is already built into Wordpress. You simply add the URL's you want, publish them to your site, and they will then show up under the heading "Blog Roll" on the side of your blog. The way to make this work for traffic is to treat it like a link exchange. Simply contact other blog owners and let them know that you have added their blog to your blog roll, and ask for a link in return.
Blog promotion can be done in the same way that you would advertise your website, and the free options are just as good, if not better, than paid. However, if you want to see results you will need to promote your blog on a regular basis, and understand that it will take time and effort to establish it.
About the Author
Mindy Benkert is a successful internet marketer and mom. In her Free E-Course, she shares 10 Proven Ways To Quickly and Easily Promote Your Blog. Sign up today!
4 Common Blogging Mistakes To Avoid
Are you doing it all wrong? You may be killing your own blog.
You log in to your blog, you write the post, you logout. Standard routine. STOP! Think you are doing everything correctly? Msitake Don't write another blog post until you read this.
Blogging Mistakes #1 - Not choosing the right title for your post
The title is the first contact point between you and your blog readers, if your titles failed to impact the reader, your post might not be read. How many times have you simply chuck in the title after you have complete writing the content? Its very common for top bloggers to use interesting titles to catch the readers attention. Why not spent a little more time on your titles.
Blogging Mistakes #2 - Not using the right targeted keyword for your post
Every webmaster knows that keyword is the key to SEO. Choosing the right target keywords can make or break a website, influences its ranking on searching engines, but do you know that your content should have targeted keywords? How much time did you spent on planning that keyword for your content? Not only is the keyword for your content important, it is essential to tag your post with the right keyword tag.
Blogging Mistakes #3 - Announcing your post
Top bloggers email other bloggers and their readers when they post an interesting article. Ever wonder why some blogger's articles get mention by a few bloggers? Why not try emailing a few other bloggers for your next post asking for feedbacks. If you article interest them you might get a few links and if not you have nothing to loose.
Blogging Mistakes #4 - Returning comments
Blogging is about communicating and building relationship with your readers. When a reader comments on your blog reply them through your comment, email or blog post. Returning comments not only keeps the commenter on your blog but make your blog interactive, and thats the whole point of web 2.0 and blogging.
If you are making the same mistakes, STOP!
About the Author
Bob is the author of the free 3-Page Report:
"The 6 step Internet Marketing System"
Head over to http://www.automatedtrafficmachine.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!
Your Ad on 100's of Engines
$4 per Month or less
Wine Blogs & Reviews
Read wine blogs, reveiws and forums from thewinespace members! All About Blogs
Learn all about blogs and set up your free Wordpress blog Blogs
A great place to get your opinions posted Tobias Zimmergren's SharePoint
Tobias Zimmergren's thoughts on development. Blog and articles about MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 Big Hit Sports
Sports Forums With Awesome Free Contests to win Cash Prizes... for stock quotes news blogs
for stock quotes stock blogs stock potcasts plus more. Leading Aussie Bloggers site
Free blogs for all! Have you had fun today?
Awesome Videos, Top rated music, Intuitive Political Blogs & more
You log in to your blog, you write the post, you logout. Standard routine. STOP! Think you are doing everything correctly? Msitake Don't write another blog post until you read this.
Blogging Mistakes #1 - Not choosing the right title for your post
The title is the first contact point between you and your blog readers, if your titles failed to impact the reader, your post might not be read. How many times have you simply chuck in the title after you have complete writing the content? Its very common for top bloggers to use interesting titles to catch the readers attention. Why not spent a little more time on your titles.
Blogging Mistakes #2 - Not using the right targeted keyword for your post
Every webmaster knows that keyword is the key to SEO. Choosing the right target keywords can make or break a website, influences its ranking on searching engines, but do you know that your content should have targeted keywords? How much time did you spent on planning that keyword for your content? Not only is the keyword for your content important, it is essential to tag your post with the right keyword tag.
Blogging Mistakes #3 - Announcing your post
Top bloggers email other bloggers and their readers when they post an interesting article. Ever wonder why some blogger's articles get mention by a few bloggers? Why not try emailing a few other bloggers for your next post asking for feedbacks. If you article interest them you might get a few links and if not you have nothing to loose.
Blogging Mistakes #4 - Returning comments
Blogging is about communicating and building relationship with your readers. When a reader comments on your blog reply them through your comment, email or blog post. Returning comments not only keeps the commenter on your blog but make your blog interactive, and thats the whole point of web 2.0 and blogging.
If you are making the same mistakes, STOP!
About the Author
Bob is the author of the free 3-Page Report:
"The 6 step Internet Marketing System"
Head over to http://www.automatedtrafficmachine.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!
Your Ad on 100's of Engines
$4 per Month or less
Wine Blogs & Reviews
Read wine blogs, reveiws and forums from thewinespace members! All About Blogs
Learn all about blogs and set up your free Wordpress blog Blogs
A great place to get your opinions posted Tobias Zimmergren's SharePoint
Tobias Zimmergren's thoughts on development. Blog and articles about MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0 Big Hit Sports
Sports Forums With Awesome Free Contests to win Cash Prizes... for stock quotes news blogs
for stock quotes stock blogs stock potcasts plus more. Leading Aussie Bloggers site
Free blogs for all! Have you had fun today?
Awesome Videos, Top rated music, Intuitive Political Blogs & more
How I Get Traffic To My Blog?
Making money from blogging depends a lot on the traffic you get. The more traffic the more profitable your blog. The number one question on every blogger's mind is "How to I get traffic to my blog?"
Here are some strategy I use. When you developed a good strategy for creating traffic, you get ever increasing traffic.
Before Starting your traffic campaign, you should have a way to measure your traffic performances. Try Google Analytics, its one of the best free tool.
1. SEO, get you website listed in the search engines for specific keywords that relate to your website. Brush up your SEO Basics. 2. Use PPC (Pay Per Click) such as Google Adwords. 3. Free Traffic Exhanges. Try this: 1. trafficswarm 2. trafficroundup 3. trafficpods 4. Post on forums similar to your niche, and have a link in your forum signature file. 5. Email to your friends tell them about your blog 6. Recycle your blog post as articles and have them posted on Article Directories. 7. Some good article directories to get you started: 1. www.eZineArticles.com 2. www.ultimatearticledirectory.com 3. www.submityourarticle.com 8. Link Exchange from other sites. 9. Create links to your blog from web 2.0 social networking sites. 10. blog and ping. Basically, when you update your blog, you can let blog portals such as technorati.com know by pinging them. You can ping a lot of portals at once by using pingomatic.com. 11. Interactions Between with other Blogs.
Try something every day that will help increase the traffic to your blog. use an excel spreadsheet to log your daily progress. Select the techniques that work for you and keep refining them. In no time you be getting a avalanche of traffic to your blog.
About the Author
Bob is the author of the free 3-Page Report:
"The 6 step Internet Marketing System"
Head over to http://www.automatedtrafficmachine.com to get your free copy now before it’s gone!
Here are some strategy I use. When you developed a good strategy for creating traffic, you get ever increasing traffic.
Before Starting your traffic campaign, you should have a way to measure your traffic performances. Try Google Analytics, its one of the best free tool.
1. SEO, get you website listed in the search engines for specific keywords that relate to your website. Brush up your SEO Basics. 2. Use PPC (Pay Per Click) such as Google Adwords. 3. Free Traffic Exhanges. Try this: 1. trafficswarm 2. trafficroundup 3. trafficpods 4. Post on forums similar to your niche, and have a link in your forum signature file. 5. Email to your friends tell them about your blog 6. Recycle your blog post as articles and have them posted on Article Directories. 7. Some good article directories to get you started: 1. www.eZineArticles.com 2. www.ultimatearticledirectory.com 3. www.submityourarticle.com 8. Link Exchange from other sites. 9. Create links to your blog from web 2.0 social networking sites. 10. blog and ping. Basically, when you update your blog, you can let blog portals such as technorati.com know by pinging them. You can ping a lot of portals at once by using pingomatic.com. 11. Interactions Between with other Blogs.
Try something every day that will help increase the traffic to your blog. use an excel spreadsheet to log your daily progress. Select the techniques that work for you and keep refining them. In no time you be getting a avalanche of traffic to your blog.
About the Author
Bob is the author of the free 3-Page Report:
"The 6 step Internet Marketing System"
Head over to http://www.automatedtrafficmachine.com to get your free copy now before it’s gone!
Blogging - I'd Like To Teach The World To Blog
Blogging can help kids make real money - just look at Carl (The Kid Blogger) Ocab, and David Wilkinson, and dozens more. The adult world needs to take note, because kid bloggers are here to stay, and they will have an impact on the whole blogosphere.
There's been a storm of controversy over kid bloggers this year, with some of the worst diatribes being directed at Philippines youngster Carl Ocab. Now I have to say from the get-go that I'm all for kids starting blogs and trying to make money from them.
Blogging is easy to start, requires little technical know-how and is a great way for kids to get experience online, learning as they earn (or don't!). Blogs provide real, immediate feedback about what makes good content, and what drives traffic, and how to build relationships. The "real world" will judge them purely on their results - a consideration that's actually hard for kids to find elsewhere. The verdict of the blogosphere might be harsh, but it will be accurate feedback in exactly the way that school reports aren't.
Internet marketing is a vital promotional skill, even if your core business is selling pink meringue mice. We encourage the kids in our Cash-Smart Kids program to start some form of online activity in their very first month.
I was tickled pink when I Googled "Carl Ocab" the other day and found a gorgeous guerrilla marketing blog post from a 10-year-old blogger was in the first page of results (monkeylime3tc.wordpress.com/carl-ocab/). Way to generate traffic!
Leveraging off someone else's controversial blog is a technique that adults pay hundreds to learn in weekend seminars. Full marks to James Brennan. (Although he will probably have to improve the quality of his blog content to retain any of that traffic as loyal readers!)
I'm going to swing out and make a prediction (you heard it here first!).
More and more kids are going to start taking blogging seriously as a money-making activity.
This will impact every business in cyberspace.
How?
1. More traffic for everyone
As these kids cruise around looking for ideas to copy, affiliate links, and freebies, they will boost everyone's traffic numbers. But will they convert? Or will they distort the demographic of the visitors who currently click on your PPC and affiliate ads?
2. Growing centres of gravity in the kid blogosphere
Let's face it - kids have more surfing time than most adults. If Ashley Qualls (age 17, making $70,000+ per month from her site) can pull the traffic numbers she pulls for her WhateverLife site giving away My Space layouts, then there are many, many blogging niches which could pull much larger numbers of kid readers than yet another blog about "How To Make Money From Blogging". And putting advertising where kids will click on it has worked for Ashley. But who is best placed to be creating the compelling content for those niches?
3. What happens when you have four million kid bloggers all having flame wars in their posts .... and linking to one another? With enough time on their hands to post five or six times times a day?
Sure, none of us may be interested in who thinks what of whose personal page on MySpace, but the teen and tween demographics are utterly immersed in "who said what about whom" for their every waking moment - blogging is just another medium for that. And with all that traffic and all those links, the serious adult blogs are potentially going to drift downward in the "Top X" lists.
So, what can you do to protect your ranking and revenues?
Only slightly tongue-in-cheek here - get a kid.
Seriously, if a kid has a huge readership, and you're quoted in every third post as their mentor ... ka ching!
Or, use a popular kid as a guest blogger, or start a parallel blog in the kidosphere and have a panel of kids you consult about whether your posts are "lame" in their eyes ... or blog about how awful some of these kid bloggers are and then leap to the defence of others (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).
No matter how you respond to the challenge, kids are here to stay. Instead of complaining about it, or criticising them, or suggesting that they aren't writing their own stuff, let's celebrate the great leveller that is the Internet, where a 12-year-old can write or speak and have their ideas taken seriously on their merits.
We have long underestimated our kids, but the likes of Ben Casnocha, Ashley Qualls, and the legions of less high-profile under-18 internet entrepreneurs like Carl Ocab and David Wilkinson are proving that teens can do anything an adult can do. Adult bloggers beware - the kid blogger wave is coming, and you either ride it, dodge it, or go under!
About the Author
Free book to download - "Finding The Right Niche For Your Cash-Smart Kid"
Jenny Ford is one of the founders of Cash-Smart Kids, and her blog can be seen at www.RaisingEntrepreneurs.org/blog
There's been a storm of controversy over kid bloggers this year, with some of the worst diatribes being directed at Philippines youngster Carl Ocab. Now I have to say from the get-go that I'm all for kids starting blogs and trying to make money from them.
Blogging is easy to start, requires little technical know-how and is a great way for kids to get experience online, learning as they earn (or don't!). Blogs provide real, immediate feedback about what makes good content, and what drives traffic, and how to build relationships. The "real world" will judge them purely on their results - a consideration that's actually hard for kids to find elsewhere. The verdict of the blogosphere might be harsh, but it will be accurate feedback in exactly the way that school reports aren't.
Internet marketing is a vital promotional skill, even if your core business is selling pink meringue mice. We encourage the kids in our Cash-Smart Kids program to start some form of online activity in their very first month.
I was tickled pink when I Googled "Carl Ocab" the other day and found a gorgeous guerrilla marketing blog post from a 10-year-old blogger was in the first page of results (monkeylime3tc.wordpress.com/carl-ocab/). Way to generate traffic!
Leveraging off someone else's controversial blog is a technique that adults pay hundreds to learn in weekend seminars. Full marks to James Brennan. (Although he will probably have to improve the quality of his blog content to retain any of that traffic as loyal readers!)
I'm going to swing out and make a prediction (you heard it here first!).
More and more kids are going to start taking blogging seriously as a money-making activity.
This will impact every business in cyberspace.
How?
1. More traffic for everyone
As these kids cruise around looking for ideas to copy, affiliate links, and freebies, they will boost everyone's traffic numbers. But will they convert? Or will they distort the demographic of the visitors who currently click on your PPC and affiliate ads?
2. Growing centres of gravity in the kid blogosphere
Let's face it - kids have more surfing time than most adults. If Ashley Qualls (age 17, making $70,000+ per month from her site) can pull the traffic numbers she pulls for her WhateverLife site giving away My Space layouts, then there are many, many blogging niches which could pull much larger numbers of kid readers than yet another blog about "How To Make Money From Blogging". And putting advertising where kids will click on it has worked for Ashley. But who is best placed to be creating the compelling content for those niches?
3. What happens when you have four million kid bloggers all having flame wars in their posts .... and linking to one another? With enough time on their hands to post five or six times times a day?
Sure, none of us may be interested in who thinks what of whose personal page on MySpace, but the teen and tween demographics are utterly immersed in "who said what about whom" for their every waking moment - blogging is just another medium for that. And with all that traffic and all those links, the serious adult blogs are potentially going to drift downward in the "Top X" lists.
So, what can you do to protect your ranking and revenues?
Only slightly tongue-in-cheek here - get a kid.
Seriously, if a kid has a huge readership, and you're quoted in every third post as their mentor ... ka ching!
Or, use a popular kid as a guest blogger, or start a parallel blog in the kidosphere and have a panel of kids you consult about whether your posts are "lame" in their eyes ... or blog about how awful some of these kid bloggers are and then leap to the defence of others (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).
No matter how you respond to the challenge, kids are here to stay. Instead of complaining about it, or criticising them, or suggesting that they aren't writing their own stuff, let's celebrate the great leveller that is the Internet, where a 12-year-old can write or speak and have their ideas taken seriously on their merits.
We have long underestimated our kids, but the likes of Ben Casnocha, Ashley Qualls, and the legions of less high-profile under-18 internet entrepreneurs like Carl Ocab and David Wilkinson are proving that teens can do anything an adult can do. Adult bloggers beware - the kid blogger wave is coming, and you either ride it, dodge it, or go under!
About the Author
Free book to download - "Finding The Right Niche For Your Cash-Smart Kid"
Jenny Ford is one of the founders of Cash-Smart Kids, and her blog can be seen at www.RaisingEntrepreneurs.org/blog
Can you Make Money with Blogs?
In this article we look at whether it is really possible to make money with blogs. In short yes it is very achievable, in fact there are a number of ways to do so.
Clearly the more established your blog the greater the level of opportunity. The more readers you have, the more chance they will see your ads and click on them or buy advertised products. Gaining traffic to your blog is another topic but with a little planning and effort you can gain traffic from search engines through keyword targetting and other seo tactics, article sites, social bookmarking sites like Digg and numerous other sources.
One popular way to make money is to host contextual ads such as Adsense or Chitika, to consider just two of the larger possibilities. With this kind of advertising the providor gives you a code snippet to include in your pages. The system will then serve ads selected to be relevant to your content and share the revenue those ads raise with you. Blending the ads into your site well will be important in order to overcome ad blindness.
Another way to make money with blogs is to join an agency like Payperpost. If your blog is approved you can be paid to write posts on various products. You can make relatively large amounts without large volumes of visitors if you have a flair for writing review style posts.
If you have a well established blog with some google pagerank you might also consider selling links from your blog to other websites. Webmaster forums are a good place to find these opportunities and you can get paid easily through your paypal account.
Similar to the contextual ads idea is the affiliate method. If you have a blog on a particular topic you can sign up for an affiliate account with a merchant who has products or services of interest to your readers. Commission Junction have many many advertisers who will pay sales commissions or lead introduction payments all co-ordinated centrally.
There are other methods such as selling merchandise like t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads etc available from organisations like Cafepress and blog flipping which is the practice of establishing and then selling blogs, has also become popular.
About the Author
Make more money with your blog - just see Work at Home Files - Making Money with Blogs
Clearly the more established your blog the greater the level of opportunity. The more readers you have, the more chance they will see your ads and click on them or buy advertised products. Gaining traffic to your blog is another topic but with a little planning and effort you can gain traffic from search engines through keyword targetting and other seo tactics, article sites, social bookmarking sites like Digg and numerous other sources.
One popular way to make money is to host contextual ads such as Adsense or Chitika, to consider just two of the larger possibilities. With this kind of advertising the providor gives you a code snippet to include in your pages. The system will then serve ads selected to be relevant to your content and share the revenue those ads raise with you. Blending the ads into your site well will be important in order to overcome ad blindness.
Another way to make money with blogs is to join an agency like Payperpost. If your blog is approved you can be paid to write posts on various products. You can make relatively large amounts without large volumes of visitors if you have a flair for writing review style posts.
If you have a well established blog with some google pagerank you might also consider selling links from your blog to other websites. Webmaster forums are a good place to find these opportunities and you can get paid easily through your paypal account.
Similar to the contextual ads idea is the affiliate method. If you have a blog on a particular topic you can sign up for an affiliate account with a merchant who has products or services of interest to your readers. Commission Junction have many many advertisers who will pay sales commissions or lead introduction payments all co-ordinated centrally.
There are other methods such as selling merchandise like t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads etc available from organisations like Cafepress and blog flipping which is the practice of establishing and then selling blogs, has also become popular.
About the Author
Make more money with your blog - just see Work at Home Files - Making Money with Blogs
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
PPC Basics: Your Guide To PPC Search Engine And Advertising
You’ve probably heard a lot about PPC and you want to know what exactly PPC is and how PPC can help you? We’re going to attempt to provide the answer to the first part of that question here but the second part is some thing that you will find elsewhere in another article.
PPC stands for Pay per click. Pay per click is an internet marketing tool that allows you to make money by carrying another person’s banner on your site or gives you the option of putting in an advertisement of your own onto someone else’s website or search engine.
PPC Search Engine Pay per click advertising on search engines gives one the option of choosing keywords that you would like your site to appear for when a search is performed. For example, If you are a shoe manufacturer then you would want that your site should appear on the page when someone types in the keyword “Shoesâ€.
As a customer you decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords that you choose.
There are a lot of pay per click search engines and an equally large number of people who have adopted Pay per click search engine advertising. If you want to get ahead in the race you are going to have to do some research and pay top dollar to the Pay per click search engine advertising firm.
Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on the keywords of your choice and how much traffic these keywords are likely to draw.
The biggest PPC services providers are Yahoo, Google, Overture, although Google is not a PPC search engine but Google providing PPC services in the form of text and ADD boxes which can be seen at right of the search result. And these all are part of other sites PPC campaign. There a number of other search engines out there and although these search engines are not as popular as Google, they generally offer one advantage. Usually these search engines have lower costs per click for a keyword than the larger search engines.
In addition to the general pay per click search engines, with a little effort you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.
There is one more point which is worthy to keep in mind that never go for big investment to your PPC Campaign just start from a low budget and absorb how PPC Campaign is performing for you to get traffic and what percent of traffic is converting in your paying customers.
Before entering into any kind of a deal with a pay per click search engine, be sure that you have the answer to the following questions:
• What is the magnitude of searches being performed by the search engine on a monthly basis?
• Who are the major search partners or affiliates that the search engine has?
• What is the magnitude of searches that the affiliate or search partner generating per month?
• Is it necessary for you to agree to have your advertisement be hosted by all the affiliates as well?
• Does the search engine guarantee fraudulent check mechanisms?
• How can a fraudulent clicks report be filed?
• How do you ensure proper accounting?
Once you are assured that the PPC Search Engine is actually working in your favor you can take up the option of PPC Search Engine Advertising. Once you find the right pay per click search engine advertising programme you will see your business soar. How? That’ an entirely different article altogether!
About the Author
Marcus is a senior PPC Search Engine Consultant with "Thagodz" a Columbia based PPC Search Engine marketing company specializing in PPC Search Engine Advertising.
PPC stands for Pay per click. Pay per click is an internet marketing tool that allows you to make money by carrying another person’s banner on your site or gives you the option of putting in an advertisement of your own onto someone else’s website or search engine.
PPC Search Engine Pay per click advertising on search engines gives one the option of choosing keywords that you would like your site to appear for when a search is performed. For example, If you are a shoe manufacturer then you would want that your site should appear on the page when someone types in the keyword “Shoesâ€.
As a customer you decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords that you choose.
There are a lot of pay per click search engines and an equally large number of people who have adopted Pay per click search engine advertising. If you want to get ahead in the race you are going to have to do some research and pay top dollar to the Pay per click search engine advertising firm.
Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on the keywords of your choice and how much traffic these keywords are likely to draw.
The biggest PPC services providers are Yahoo, Google, Overture, although Google is not a PPC search engine but Google providing PPC services in the form of text and ADD boxes which can be seen at right of the search result. And these all are part of other sites PPC campaign. There a number of other search engines out there and although these search engines are not as popular as Google, they generally offer one advantage. Usually these search engines have lower costs per click for a keyword than the larger search engines.
In addition to the general pay per click search engines, with a little effort you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.
There is one more point which is worthy to keep in mind that never go for big investment to your PPC Campaign just start from a low budget and absorb how PPC Campaign is performing for you to get traffic and what percent of traffic is converting in your paying customers.
Before entering into any kind of a deal with a pay per click search engine, be sure that you have the answer to the following questions:
• What is the magnitude of searches being performed by the search engine on a monthly basis?
• Who are the major search partners or affiliates that the search engine has?
• What is the magnitude of searches that the affiliate or search partner generating per month?
• Is it necessary for you to agree to have your advertisement be hosted by all the affiliates as well?
• Does the search engine guarantee fraudulent check mechanisms?
• How can a fraudulent clicks report be filed?
• How do you ensure proper accounting?
Once you are assured that the PPC Search Engine is actually working in your favor you can take up the option of PPC Search Engine Advertising. Once you find the right pay per click search engine advertising programme you will see your business soar. How? That’ an entirely different article altogether!
About the Author
Marcus is a senior PPC Search Engine Consultant with "Thagodz" a Columbia based PPC Search Engine marketing company specializing in PPC Search Engine Advertising.
5 Tips to Make the Most Money from Google Adsense
Some people may be aware of the different ways online but, one seems to be most commonly and easily used. This is by using Google Adsense. If you have never heard of it, Google Adsense id when you have a website or a blog and you can place Google ads onto your page. Whenever someone clicks on the Google ads that you have placed on your site, you will get paid for it.
There are people out there right now that have made thousands of dollars per day from Google adsense. It can be quite a hard thing to do if you are strictly basing Google adsense as your full time income. Now, I would like to discuss with you a few things that you can do in order to get your Google ads fully ready to start making money.
1. The first thing you want to do is make sure that your Google ads match your website color. You don't want to have a brown ad mixed on top of a purple website background. It doesn't look right and in decreases the click through rate.
2. Whenever you choose the types of ads you want make sure that you put as many ads as possible on your site. Don't make it look over crowded though because people will identify quickly that your site is spamming ads.
3. Make sure that you write about something, or have content on a niche that is very profitable. You can do a search in Google keyword tool to find which keywords are making the most money in your niche. When you find that out, you can write some stuff about your niche using that keyword and the ads will automatically upload the ads that are paying more money.
4. Avoid using the leader board image ads because they seem less appealing and have been proven that they have a lower click through rate as well.
5. Never click on your own ads to try and get more money out of it. You can get a fine from Google and you will no longer ever be allowed to use Google adsense again.
So, there you have it! I have given you 5 tips to gaining more money with Google ads. Now, in order to get a full time income using Google adsense, you must multiply your work. By this I mean you should have over 10 websites up and running with traffic through them to get the most amount of money from just Google ads alone.
About the Author
For more information, you can check out: Profit Lance
There are people out there right now that have made thousands of dollars per day from Google adsense. It can be quite a hard thing to do if you are strictly basing Google adsense as your full time income. Now, I would like to discuss with you a few things that you can do in order to get your Google ads fully ready to start making money.
1. The first thing you want to do is make sure that your Google ads match your website color. You don't want to have a brown ad mixed on top of a purple website background. It doesn't look right and in decreases the click through rate.
2. Whenever you choose the types of ads you want make sure that you put as many ads as possible on your site. Don't make it look over crowded though because people will identify quickly that your site is spamming ads.
3. Make sure that you write about something, or have content on a niche that is very profitable. You can do a search in Google keyword tool to find which keywords are making the most money in your niche. When you find that out, you can write some stuff about your niche using that keyword and the ads will automatically upload the ads that are paying more money.
4. Avoid using the leader board image ads because they seem less appealing and have been proven that they have a lower click through rate as well.
5. Never click on your own ads to try and get more money out of it. You can get a fine from Google and you will no longer ever be allowed to use Google adsense again.
So, there you have it! I have given you 5 tips to gaining more money with Google ads. Now, in order to get a full time income using Google adsense, you must multiply your work. By this I mean you should have over 10 websites up and running with traffic through them to get the most amount of money from just Google ads alone.
About the Author
For more information, you can check out: Profit Lance
How to Build a Website Right (the first time)
A recent study of people trying to make a living online discovered a few interesting facts. Almost 50% of those people didn't have a unique, professional website of their own. And, those that did, averaged almost 10 times as much income as those who didn't! Those marketers who didn't have a website said it was either too hard to build one and get it up and running, or that it was just too expensive to pay for a really good web host, and cheap web hosts lacked the tools they needed to make a really good site, and they just didn't have the support they needed to help them with questions or problems. Plus, many of them felt overwhelmed with the idea of building a website, and just didn't know where to start or what to do first. All of these are valid concerns.
Many people are paying way too much for their web hosting, and others are hosting with companies that provide marginal service and support. Many people get "roped in" by advertisements for hosting accounts that only cost three or four dollars a month, only to find that they have to sign up for 3-4 years to get that price, and that the add-ons and extras they need for their site can more than double that price. Then, after you get your domain name and web hosting set up, what do you do next to build an impressive, really professional looking, SEO optimized web site?
In this article, I'll try to help you, step by step, to build a web site you can be proud of, and that will be able to attract traffic and make you a profit, as well. First of all, don't go and sign up for a domain name or web hosting now! You really won't need it for a few weeks or a month, and there's no reason to pay for it while you're not going to be using it.
Here are the six steps you need to take, in the order you need to take them, in order to build a unique, professional, profit pulling website.
1.Decide on your area of expertise or “nicheâ€. What product(s) do you plan on selling, and is there a market for those products? What is the competition in that market like? Are there a lot of other well constructed and optimized sites that carry similar products? Examine the top 10 listings for your major keywords in Google, Yahoo! and MSN to find out what they're doing, and do you think you can compete with them. This can be a lot of work, but there are specialized tools and software to make it easier. Some of these, like the Google keyword tool and the Wordtracker trial, are free. Other, better tools may cost you a few dollars, but save you days of time and work, and will give you values for the effectiveness of your keywords (KEI). This is just a numerical comparison of how large your market is versus how much competition there is in that market. There are a few tools like this out there, but I use the full version of WebCEO. You can get a free trial version at WebCEO Free Trial. Really brainstorm at this point. If your first idea doesn't have a lot of searches on Google, YaHoo! or MSN, or if the competition is too tough, think of another idea. You want to be in a field you can succeed in. The one exception to this is if your website is an extension of your brick and mortar business. In that case, spend more time researching for keywords that your competition may have missed, but that get a fair amount of daily searches. 2.Generate an extensive keyword list for the niche you choose, and print it out. You don't want just the most searched for keywords, you also want the “long tail†(more than 3 words) keywords that apply to your site, even if they're searched for infrequently. Most people search using a combination of from 2-4 words. One word, or 5 or more word, searches only account for about 25% of the total. Still, these long terms will be easier to rank highly for, and that business is easier to get, especially if you give people exactly what they're looking for with the long tail searches. The tools mentioned above can also help with this. Try adding brand names to your keywords, or more specific and less common terms for each one. 3.Begin collecting information related to the topic of your site, and write some of your own, unique content. You can find PLR (private label rights) articles on just about any topic. Visit free giveaway sites to find some, or do a search for “PLR articles on (your topic)â€. Article directories can also be a source of info, but those articles normally come with restricted rights. Still, you can get ideas from those articles to write your own unique content. Don't plagiarize other people's work! Besides being simply wrong, it can get you in real legal trouble, and the search engines will definitely recognize duplicate content. With your PLR articles, you have the right to edit and adapt them, and you should definitely do so. Try to add your own unique perspective to each one you plan on using. Keep the keyword list you generated above next to you while you write, and try to include a good amount of those words in your content, without making it sound weird or strange. It can help to try and create one article specifically geared towards each high KEI keyword you have. These can be used as posts in your blog, or on your ADDITIONAL INFO pages. 4.Design your website on paper, and decide what content you'll place where, and how the pages will link together. Basically, create a map of your site. A common design will include at least some of these pages. HOME ��" Your main landing page (index.html) / ABOUT US (OUR COMPANY) / OUR PRODUCTS (& / or OUR SERVICES) (leads to your e-commerce shopping cart) / ASK A QUESTION (or SUPPORT) / ADDITIONAL INFO / CONTACT US (address, email address or form, phone) / OUR NEWSLETTER (leads to a sign-up page) / BUY NOW (leads to purchase page) / YOUR SHOPPING CART / SIGN IN / SIGN UP. A main menu linking to these pages should appear on all of them, usually at the top, or on the left side, or both. You may also want to add special areas to your website, like a blog or a mailing list to send out your newsletter or sales flyers. These areas may or may not be linked directly to your other pages. 5.Create, edit and proof the written portion of your content, using Notepad. Almost every Windows computer has this simple html editor. Simply type out, and use Copy/Paste, to build your pages. Make a separate file for each page (index.txt, aboutus.txt, etc.) and save them all in a file named “YourNicheâ€Website, or something similar. (HINT: don't hit return when your text runs off the side of the page, until you're ready to make a paragraph break.) Don't worry too much about links and product listings yet, just get the basic written copy done. If you don't have Notepad on your computer, you can use Writer in Open Office, which is a free software package available from openoffice.org. Just don't worry about formatting the content yet (bold, fonts, headers, bullet points, numbered lists, etc.), you'll do that later. Collect, or make any images you may want on your web site. Your logo, for instance, or pictures of your offices, products, associates, etc. Collect them in a folder named “imagesâ€, in your website folder. 6.Now you're finally ready to register a domain name and get your hosting set up. With all of the background work done, getting your site set up will be much quicker and easier, and you won't be paying for something you're not using, while you accomplish everything above. You may also need FTP (file transfer protocol) software, to manipulate certain pages in your web site. You can get a free, easy to use one called Filezilla, at sourceforge.net.
Here's a few hints about getting your web hosting. For a business, you definitely don't want to use “free†hosting. It may be tempting, but the small space and bandwidth, the “domain name†which includes the free hosts name, the mandatory ads, the other restrictions, and the almost total lack of support, just won't allow you to build a professional e-commerce web site.
Really cheap web hosts, especially those that allow you to pay “by the monthâ€, have their own set of problems. Lack of support, outdated, unreliable servers, and restrictions on the programs and scripts you can use are among them. Perhaps the worst problem you'll face with one of the cut-rate hosts is that you may be sharing your IP address with scammers, spammers, hackers, and phishers. These low life members of the internet world specifically target low priced, pay by the month, hosting companies. They know their website will be shut down in a few days or weeks, so they want to invest as little as possible in it. They collect what money they can from their scams, and then move on to another host. Meanwhile, your web site (which shared their IP address), may be blocked from sending mail to all the major mail servers, until your host confirms that they have closed the offending account.
Also, because they have so many complaints of spam to deal with, many of these hosting companies have adopted a “guilty until proven innocent†attitude. This means that if a few of your customers click your mail into their Spam folder, rather than just using your unsubscribe link, you can be accused of spamming! They didn't mean to cause you a problem, they just didn't want to get your emails anymore. Some cheap hosts will shut down your website, and lock your domain name, until you provide documentation that those messages weren't spam. Of course, you should be able to do this, but in the meantime, your site can be shut down for weeks!
If money is no object, a full priced Premium hosting company will give you a large amount of space and bandwidth, a variety of tools and bonuses, and the support is usually at least decent, although this can vary from host to host. Some of the larger ones seem to spend more money on celebrity endorsements and TV ads than on their tech support departments. Of course, this will cost you $24.95 to $39.95 per month per site (if paid yearly), plus many do have a one time set-up fee of $30-$99 per website.
Personally, I've tried both a few cheap and a couple of different premium web hosts over a period of about six years. None of them lived up to my expectations, in one way or another. I've had a web site of mine shut down due to a spam complaint by a large, well known, cheap hosting company, and even though I was innocent, it took 12 days to get it unlocked. I've hosted with a large premium host that took an average of 24-48 hours to answer simple support questions. Another Premium host told me that the Pearl modules I'd ask to have updated were done. After two weeks of fiddling around with a script that I couldn't get to work, I checked, and found out the upgrades had never been done! Still, overall, I've found you do “get what you pay forâ€, and I'd recommend a premium host over a dirt cheap one, any day.
By chance, I happened to find my current host, because of my wife's business. They have a fantastic program, with all of the features, tools, space and bonuses of any premium host out there, plus some SEO and software bonuses that the others don't have. And the price was so low, I almost didn't give them a try, since I didn't want a repeat of my experiences with some of the other cheap web hosts. Unfortunately for most people, they only offered their hosting packages to professionals in the real estate and mortgage lending industries. It was a “bonus†they offered to the affiliates who do business with them. Since my wife owns a mortgage brokerage, and was using their wholesale lending products, she was offered the opportunity to use their hosting service, and I decided to give it a try. I actually assumed the support would probably be marginal, but the price was so good, I was willing to risk it. I was wrong. They said all support questions would be handled within an hour, and I've actually always had an answer in no more than 15-20 minutes.
The good news is, since the recent meltdown in the real estate market, they've lost a lot of clients, who simply went out of business. This company had a decision to make. They could either offer their service to a wider range of clients, or shut the program down. Due mainly to the fact that their current clients (me included) were adamant about the fact that they wanted to continue to host their websites with them, they decided to establish a new online presence that would give everyone an opportunity to use their web hosting and domain name registration service. Now, you can host your site anywhere you'd like, but if you want a premium hosting service with all of tools and extras, without paying the $400-$500 a year premium price, I'd recommend HostJacker.com, as the best option.
One of their best features is their free online website builder. This can save you several hundred dollars over buying a WYSIWIG software package to use. Just choose a template, name your pages, and paste in your content and images. It automatically establishes your links between pages, and launches your site with one click. They also have a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try them out with no risk. Once you've completed steps 1-5 above, you can go to HostJacker.com to find out more.
I hope this article has been of help to you in starting to build your own, unique web site. In future articles, I'll go over each step in detail, and give you more free and cheap tools you can use for each step. If you decide you'd like to get these articles in the form of a newsletter, my next article will have a link you can use to sign up, and I'll send each detailed step right to your Inbox.
About the Author
Jack S. Pooley Tampa, Florida 813-882-8878 http://www.upaas.com
Many people are paying way too much for their web hosting, and others are hosting with companies that provide marginal service and support. Many people get "roped in" by advertisements for hosting accounts that only cost three or four dollars a month, only to find that they have to sign up for 3-4 years to get that price, and that the add-ons and extras they need for their site can more than double that price. Then, after you get your domain name and web hosting set up, what do you do next to build an impressive, really professional looking, SEO optimized web site?
In this article, I'll try to help you, step by step, to build a web site you can be proud of, and that will be able to attract traffic and make you a profit, as well. First of all, don't go and sign up for a domain name or web hosting now! You really won't need it for a few weeks or a month, and there's no reason to pay for it while you're not going to be using it.
Here are the six steps you need to take, in the order you need to take them, in order to build a unique, professional, profit pulling website.
1.Decide on your area of expertise or “nicheâ€. What product(s) do you plan on selling, and is there a market for those products? What is the competition in that market like? Are there a lot of other well constructed and optimized sites that carry similar products? Examine the top 10 listings for your major keywords in Google, Yahoo! and MSN to find out what they're doing, and do you think you can compete with them. This can be a lot of work, but there are specialized tools and software to make it easier. Some of these, like the Google keyword tool and the Wordtracker trial, are free. Other, better tools may cost you a few dollars, but save you days of time and work, and will give you values for the effectiveness of your keywords (KEI). This is just a numerical comparison of how large your market is versus how much competition there is in that market. There are a few tools like this out there, but I use the full version of WebCEO. You can get a free trial version at WebCEO Free Trial. Really brainstorm at this point. If your first idea doesn't have a lot of searches on Google, YaHoo! or MSN, or if the competition is too tough, think of another idea. You want to be in a field you can succeed in. The one exception to this is if your website is an extension of your brick and mortar business. In that case, spend more time researching for keywords that your competition may have missed, but that get a fair amount of daily searches. 2.Generate an extensive keyword list for the niche you choose, and print it out. You don't want just the most searched for keywords, you also want the “long tail†(more than 3 words) keywords that apply to your site, even if they're searched for infrequently. Most people search using a combination of from 2-4 words. One word, or 5 or more word, searches only account for about 25% of the total. Still, these long terms will be easier to rank highly for, and that business is easier to get, especially if you give people exactly what they're looking for with the long tail searches. The tools mentioned above can also help with this. Try adding brand names to your keywords, or more specific and less common terms for each one. 3.Begin collecting information related to the topic of your site, and write some of your own, unique content. You can find PLR (private label rights) articles on just about any topic. Visit free giveaway sites to find some, or do a search for “PLR articles on (your topic)â€. Article directories can also be a source of info, but those articles normally come with restricted rights. Still, you can get ideas from those articles to write your own unique content. Don't plagiarize other people's work! Besides being simply wrong, it can get you in real legal trouble, and the search engines will definitely recognize duplicate content. With your PLR articles, you have the right to edit and adapt them, and you should definitely do so. Try to add your own unique perspective to each one you plan on using. Keep the keyword list you generated above next to you while you write, and try to include a good amount of those words in your content, without making it sound weird or strange. It can help to try and create one article specifically geared towards each high KEI keyword you have. These can be used as posts in your blog, or on your ADDITIONAL INFO pages. 4.Design your website on paper, and decide what content you'll place where, and how the pages will link together. Basically, create a map of your site. A common design will include at least some of these pages. HOME ��" Your main landing page (index.html) / ABOUT US (OUR COMPANY) / OUR PRODUCTS (& / or OUR SERVICES) (leads to your e-commerce shopping cart) / ASK A QUESTION (or SUPPORT) / ADDITIONAL INFO / CONTACT US (address, email address or form, phone) / OUR NEWSLETTER (leads to a sign-up page) / BUY NOW (leads to purchase page) / YOUR SHOPPING CART / SIGN IN / SIGN UP. A main menu linking to these pages should appear on all of them, usually at the top, or on the left side, or both. You may also want to add special areas to your website, like a blog or a mailing list to send out your newsletter or sales flyers. These areas may or may not be linked directly to your other pages. 5.Create, edit and proof the written portion of your content, using Notepad. Almost every Windows computer has this simple html editor. Simply type out, and use Copy/Paste, to build your pages. Make a separate file for each page (index.txt, aboutus.txt, etc.) and save them all in a file named “YourNicheâ€Website, or something similar. (HINT: don't hit return when your text runs off the side of the page, until you're ready to make a paragraph break.) Don't worry too much about links and product listings yet, just get the basic written copy done. If you don't have Notepad on your computer, you can use Writer in Open Office, which is a free software package available from openoffice.org. Just don't worry about formatting the content yet (bold, fonts, headers, bullet points, numbered lists, etc.), you'll do that later. Collect, or make any images you may want on your web site. Your logo, for instance, or pictures of your offices, products, associates, etc. Collect them in a folder named “imagesâ€, in your website folder. 6.Now you're finally ready to register a domain name and get your hosting set up. With all of the background work done, getting your site set up will be much quicker and easier, and you won't be paying for something you're not using, while you accomplish everything above. You may also need FTP (file transfer protocol) software, to manipulate certain pages in your web site. You can get a free, easy to use one called Filezilla, at sourceforge.net.
Here's a few hints about getting your web hosting. For a business, you definitely don't want to use “free†hosting. It may be tempting, but the small space and bandwidth, the “domain name†which includes the free hosts name, the mandatory ads, the other restrictions, and the almost total lack of support, just won't allow you to build a professional e-commerce web site.
Really cheap web hosts, especially those that allow you to pay “by the monthâ€, have their own set of problems. Lack of support, outdated, unreliable servers, and restrictions on the programs and scripts you can use are among them. Perhaps the worst problem you'll face with one of the cut-rate hosts is that you may be sharing your IP address with scammers, spammers, hackers, and phishers. These low life members of the internet world specifically target low priced, pay by the month, hosting companies. They know their website will be shut down in a few days or weeks, so they want to invest as little as possible in it. They collect what money they can from their scams, and then move on to another host. Meanwhile, your web site (which shared their IP address), may be blocked from sending mail to all the major mail servers, until your host confirms that they have closed the offending account.
Also, because they have so many complaints of spam to deal with, many of these hosting companies have adopted a “guilty until proven innocent†attitude. This means that if a few of your customers click your mail into their Spam folder, rather than just using your unsubscribe link, you can be accused of spamming! They didn't mean to cause you a problem, they just didn't want to get your emails anymore. Some cheap hosts will shut down your website, and lock your domain name, until you provide documentation that those messages weren't spam. Of course, you should be able to do this, but in the meantime, your site can be shut down for weeks!
If money is no object, a full priced Premium hosting company will give you a large amount of space and bandwidth, a variety of tools and bonuses, and the support is usually at least decent, although this can vary from host to host. Some of the larger ones seem to spend more money on celebrity endorsements and TV ads than on their tech support departments. Of course, this will cost you $24.95 to $39.95 per month per site (if paid yearly), plus many do have a one time set-up fee of $30-$99 per website.
Personally, I've tried both a few cheap and a couple of different premium web hosts over a period of about six years. None of them lived up to my expectations, in one way or another. I've had a web site of mine shut down due to a spam complaint by a large, well known, cheap hosting company, and even though I was innocent, it took 12 days to get it unlocked. I've hosted with a large premium host that took an average of 24-48 hours to answer simple support questions. Another Premium host told me that the Pearl modules I'd ask to have updated were done. After two weeks of fiddling around with a script that I couldn't get to work, I checked, and found out the upgrades had never been done! Still, overall, I've found you do “get what you pay forâ€, and I'd recommend a premium host over a dirt cheap one, any day.
By chance, I happened to find my current host, because of my wife's business. They have a fantastic program, with all of the features, tools, space and bonuses of any premium host out there, plus some SEO and software bonuses that the others don't have. And the price was so low, I almost didn't give them a try, since I didn't want a repeat of my experiences with some of the other cheap web hosts. Unfortunately for most people, they only offered their hosting packages to professionals in the real estate and mortgage lending industries. It was a “bonus†they offered to the affiliates who do business with them. Since my wife owns a mortgage brokerage, and was using their wholesale lending products, she was offered the opportunity to use their hosting service, and I decided to give it a try. I actually assumed the support would probably be marginal, but the price was so good, I was willing to risk it. I was wrong. They said all support questions would be handled within an hour, and I've actually always had an answer in no more than 15-20 minutes.
The good news is, since the recent meltdown in the real estate market, they've lost a lot of clients, who simply went out of business. This company had a decision to make. They could either offer their service to a wider range of clients, or shut the program down. Due mainly to the fact that their current clients (me included) were adamant about the fact that they wanted to continue to host their websites with them, they decided to establish a new online presence that would give everyone an opportunity to use their web hosting and domain name registration service. Now, you can host your site anywhere you'd like, but if you want a premium hosting service with all of tools and extras, without paying the $400-$500 a year premium price, I'd recommend HostJacker.com, as the best option.
One of their best features is their free online website builder. This can save you several hundred dollars over buying a WYSIWIG software package to use. Just choose a template, name your pages, and paste in your content and images. It automatically establishes your links between pages, and launches your site with one click. They also have a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try them out with no risk. Once you've completed steps 1-5 above, you can go to HostJacker.com to find out more.
I hope this article has been of help to you in starting to build your own, unique web site. In future articles, I'll go over each step in detail, and give you more free and cheap tools you can use for each step. If you decide you'd like to get these articles in the form of a newsletter, my next article will have a link you can use to sign up, and I'll send each detailed step right to your Inbox.
About the Author
Jack S. Pooley Tampa, Florida 813-882-8878 http://www.upaas.com
Improve My Search Engine Rankings - keywords
If you're marketing a business on the Internet whether you succeed or fail relies largely on bringing qualified traffic to your web site. The important word here is qualified - by which I mean people who are interested in buying or consuming your product or service.
Driving traffic to your web site is extremely easy - but on its own merely drives up your hosting costs. What you need are sales and there are important steps to achieving this - which although are not difficult - do involve some work and time. In this article we are going to look at the first steps of this challenge and arguably the most important.
For the purpose of this article we will focus on what "organic traffic" to your site. This refers to people being directed via search engines to your web pages. Arguably the best sort of traffic as its qualified (via the search term) and best of all it's free - studies suggest that search users are 80% more likely to select an organic result to a paid one (all the sponsored links above and to the side of the search listings).
Lets first of all think of how these people arrive at our site. They start up their browser and likely select Google, Yahoo, Lycos, MSN or whatever search engine they use. Into this search engine they type in a phrase or words which they hope will answer their question - this is a very important point to consider. Think very carefully about your potential customers and how they would find you on the internet.
Lets say you manufactured and sold burglar alarms in Manchester. The most attractive visitors to you are people who are looking for burglar alarms in your area. Ok I'll be that customer and lets run through what might happen - I own a small shop in Manchester which has just been broken into. I am getting a new burglar alarm fitted so I need someone to install and fit it.
I type in "burglar alarm" into google - what do I get? Lots of paid adverts with burglar alarms for sale from all over the UK. Also a list of organic search results. At the top will likely be a large (or maybe not) manufacturer or retailer of burglar alarms - the search engine will bring you results based on your location to a point but in my case they all seem to be in London. I don't want a firm in London I want a local firm who can come and give me a quote and see my premises. So what do I do next - well why not just type the same term in but add Manchester to the end.
I type in "burglar alarms manchester" - what do I get? Well the search engine has brought back lots of links with burglar alarm specialists in Manchester - great that's what I want :)
It's very simple but to me the above searcher is worth thousands of non-qualified hits. But if I want to improve my search engine rankings and my business that's exactly how I must think. I want that searcher very badly - there is a very good chance he or she will become a customer.
Some basic analysis of our situation - we want all the above traffic - both the UK searcher for burglar alarms but especially the "Manchester burglar alarms" searcher. What we must focus on then are the keywords - which words would our potential customer likely use in order to find us. Don't try and be to clever about this - think logically - ask your friends, partners or anyone the same question - it's likely you will receive many different answers.
Try to think of different scenarios - humans approach things in many different directions - lots of searches could originate in much different ways. In our situation a searcher may follow a similar pattern and arrive via the search "secure my premises manchester", "house alarms manchester" or "secure my house manchester". The lists are endless but generally you can narrow it down to some likely terms. You will then have compiled a list of important keywords which will be vital to the success of your web site in generating business (not just traffic).
If you're asking someone to develop a website for your business or optimise for search engines - these keywords are crucial.
An impressive flash based web site built with no regards for your business or keywords will bring your business little - a web site built or optimised around your keywords will bring you real life paying customers. Professionals can help you with establishing these keywords but they will not know your business as well as you - the web professional who doesn't involve you in this critical phase is likely not worth the money.
Of course there's a whole lot more to the whys and hows to get ranked highly but never lose site of your keywords - they will bring you customers and are vital!!
Joe Simpson Improve my Search Engine Rankings
About the Author
SEO and IT Specialist Hard working Welshman
Driving traffic to your web site is extremely easy - but on its own merely drives up your hosting costs. What you need are sales and there are important steps to achieving this - which although are not difficult - do involve some work and time. In this article we are going to look at the first steps of this challenge and arguably the most important.
For the purpose of this article we will focus on what "organic traffic" to your site. This refers to people being directed via search engines to your web pages. Arguably the best sort of traffic as its qualified (via the search term) and best of all it's free - studies suggest that search users are 80% more likely to select an organic result to a paid one (all the sponsored links above and to the side of the search listings).
Lets first of all think of how these people arrive at our site. They start up their browser and likely select Google, Yahoo, Lycos, MSN or whatever search engine they use. Into this search engine they type in a phrase or words which they hope will answer their question - this is a very important point to consider. Think very carefully about your potential customers and how they would find you on the internet.
Lets say you manufactured and sold burglar alarms in Manchester. The most attractive visitors to you are people who are looking for burglar alarms in your area. Ok I'll be that customer and lets run through what might happen - I own a small shop in Manchester which has just been broken into. I am getting a new burglar alarm fitted so I need someone to install and fit it.
I type in "burglar alarm" into google - what do I get? Lots of paid adverts with burglar alarms for sale from all over the UK. Also a list of organic search results. At the top will likely be a large (or maybe not) manufacturer or retailer of burglar alarms - the search engine will bring you results based on your location to a point but in my case they all seem to be in London. I don't want a firm in London I want a local firm who can come and give me a quote and see my premises. So what do I do next - well why not just type the same term in but add Manchester to the end.
I type in "burglar alarms manchester" - what do I get? Well the search engine has brought back lots of links with burglar alarm specialists in Manchester - great that's what I want :)
It's very simple but to me the above searcher is worth thousands of non-qualified hits. But if I want to improve my search engine rankings and my business that's exactly how I must think. I want that searcher very badly - there is a very good chance he or she will become a customer.
Some basic analysis of our situation - we want all the above traffic - both the UK searcher for burglar alarms but especially the "Manchester burglar alarms" searcher. What we must focus on then are the keywords - which words would our potential customer likely use in order to find us. Don't try and be to clever about this - think logically - ask your friends, partners or anyone the same question - it's likely you will receive many different answers.
Try to think of different scenarios - humans approach things in many different directions - lots of searches could originate in much different ways. In our situation a searcher may follow a similar pattern and arrive via the search "secure my premises manchester", "house alarms manchester" or "secure my house manchester". The lists are endless but generally you can narrow it down to some likely terms. You will then have compiled a list of important keywords which will be vital to the success of your web site in generating business (not just traffic).
If you're asking someone to develop a website for your business or optimise for search engines - these keywords are crucial.
An impressive flash based web site built with no regards for your business or keywords will bring your business little - a web site built or optimised around your keywords will bring you real life paying customers. Professionals can help you with establishing these keywords but they will not know your business as well as you - the web professional who doesn't involve you in this critical phase is likely not worth the money.
Of course there's a whole lot more to the whys and hows to get ranked highly but never lose site of your keywords - they will bring you customers and are vital!!
Joe Simpson Improve my Search Engine Rankings
About the Author
SEO and IT Specialist Hard working Welshman
The Best Way To Increase Your Google Adsense Revenue!
Due to the high revenue that are possible with Google Adsense ads, people like to put them everywhere they can, however, the best source of revenue with Google Adsense ads still remains creating a content filled website. So where's the BEST place to put your Google Adsense ads? Adsense websites have great potential if you know how to do it, which is exactly what we want to show you. What Google Adsense allows is for people just like you to be able to create a content website about anything: something that interests you, something you're good at, or just content that has profitable Adsense keywords, and using the knowledge you have about those topics you profit. Basically Google Adsense allows you to make money with just information.
"Truely...Quality Content Is Key" Google Adsense will show you just how profitable that content is. Now as we mentioned before, you can create an Adsense website with quality content generate a high yield. Top paying Adsense keywords can bring in anywhere from $2-$3.00 a click, up to even $56.00 for just one single click. How insane is that? What makes it even easier, is that you can just buy Adsense website templates (Adsense Turnkey websites), these templates come pre-filled with content on those high and top paying Google Adsense keywords. Then all you need to do is upload those pages and you start making the cash.
Turnkey templates are fast and easy way to get quality content. The quality content pages attract the reader because they help in some way. In return, Google won't bother us for cheating, and most of the time surfers are more likely to read more information on your site, thus turning each reader into a more likely candidate to click on the Google Adsense ads. Quality content keeps readers, and generates more clicks.
Remember, if you want someone to click on Google Adsense ads, they need to stay on the page for while, and if there isn't much content they won't be there for too long. So either build content yourself, buy templates with pre-written Adsense articles. Each click may not be much, but if you start attracting a lot of readers, and those readers come back, those small payments from each click will quickly add up. Do not underestimate the ability of Google Adsense to make money for you!
"Google Adsense Profits - How Much Money You'll Make" I'm sure you're wondering how much money you can actually make with Google Adsense. Starting off you'll probably make around $20-$30.00 a day if you can get some targeted traffic to your site. Adsense profit can easily be up in the thousands per day if you can do it right. However that takes time, building, and effort, so if you plan to make much money with Google Adsense you need to stick through to the end and keep adding content pages despite initially low revenue. Its easy to make money with Google Adsense but incase you're doubting me I want to throw out some numbers for you.
You can make your profits grow faster than over 90% of the website using Adsense templates with "Quality Content" today, would you believe me? On average our sites make about $190-$330.00 per day which at the end of the month easily adds up to a decent sum. But we're still in the low end, which is why we keep expanding our content and constantly add more and more information for readers to check out.
With the purchase of Adsense website templates with "Quality Content", you are only a few simple steps away from owning a massive network of profitable Adsense websites. All you need to do is register a domain for each site you plan to use, create a web hosting account, update a few files, and then upload all files to your server. Almost overnight you can be the proud owner of a great collection of informative sites that's poised to make you money while you sleep!
With "Quality Content" tyou can earn thousands of dollars in AdSense profits, visit us at www.adsensecashsite.com and you'll get the 40 amazing Adsense website templates.
About the Author
Start earning cash with Adsense Websites adsense website templates check us out us to read just how fast it is to make cash with Adsense Ads adsense website templates
"Truely...Quality Content Is Key" Google Adsense will show you just how profitable that content is. Now as we mentioned before, you can create an Adsense website with quality content generate a high yield. Top paying Adsense keywords can bring in anywhere from $2-$3.00 a click, up to even $56.00 for just one single click. How insane is that? What makes it even easier, is that you can just buy Adsense website templates (Adsense Turnkey websites), these templates come pre-filled with content on those high and top paying Google Adsense keywords. Then all you need to do is upload those pages and you start making the cash.
Turnkey templates are fast and easy way to get quality content. The quality content pages attract the reader because they help in some way. In return, Google won't bother us for cheating, and most of the time surfers are more likely to read more information on your site, thus turning each reader into a more likely candidate to click on the Google Adsense ads. Quality content keeps readers, and generates more clicks.
Remember, if you want someone to click on Google Adsense ads, they need to stay on the page for while, and if there isn't much content they won't be there for too long. So either build content yourself, buy templates with pre-written Adsense articles. Each click may not be much, but if you start attracting a lot of readers, and those readers come back, those small payments from each click will quickly add up. Do not underestimate the ability of Google Adsense to make money for you!
"Google Adsense Profits - How Much Money You'll Make" I'm sure you're wondering how much money you can actually make with Google Adsense. Starting off you'll probably make around $20-$30.00 a day if you can get some targeted traffic to your site. Adsense profit can easily be up in the thousands per day if you can do it right. However that takes time, building, and effort, so if you plan to make much money with Google Adsense you need to stick through to the end and keep adding content pages despite initially low revenue. Its easy to make money with Google Adsense but incase you're doubting me I want to throw out some numbers for you.
You can make your profits grow faster than over 90% of the website using Adsense templates with "Quality Content" today, would you believe me? On average our sites make about $190-$330.00 per day which at the end of the month easily adds up to a decent sum. But we're still in the low end, which is why we keep expanding our content and constantly add more and more information for readers to check out.
With the purchase of Adsense website templates with "Quality Content", you are only a few simple steps away from owning a massive network of profitable Adsense websites. All you need to do is register a domain for each site you plan to use, create a web hosting account, update a few files, and then upload all files to your server. Almost overnight you can be the proud owner of a great collection of informative sites that's poised to make you money while you sleep!
With "Quality Content" tyou can earn thousands of dollars in AdSense profits, visit us at www.adsensecashsite.com and you'll get the 40 amazing Adsense website templates.
About the Author
Start earning cash with Adsense Websites adsense website templates check us out us to read just how fast it is to make cash with Adsense Ads adsense website templates
The Big Three In Pay Per Click Search Engines
If you are looking to get involved in pay per click advertising or expand the current reach of your existing pay per click advertising, where do you turn? Here are our recommendations on where your ad spend is best used ... and a few tips to optimize your accounts.
The Big Three in PPC
In the PPC search marketing world, the best results come from Google, Yahoo and MSN. These days, the Big Three share a lot more common ground, offering close to the same sort of PPC services -- geo targeting, setting adds to switch on and off during optimum times, splitting test the copy on your ads, optimizing quality scores, and so on. Google remains dominate in search traffic, but Yahoo and MSN are major players.
AdWords From Google
Quality traffic is important and Google AdWords remains on top in delivering high-volume clicks that count. However, don't sleep on Google's success -- you still need to monitor your results with frequency. With enough the time, knowledge and the right tools, you can do this yourself, or you can outsource all that to a professional PPC management company.
Be aware that Google is not only becoming increasingly competitive, but its pay per click marketplace is also getting harder to ace. These days, there are more variables to consider with "Quality Scores" playing a more important role and more bids turning up "Inactive for Search." One of the keys to maintaining a healthy Google account is to make sure you put in the time to continually test and monitor your relevant keywords. You'll get penalized if you don't -- bid minimums might be increased, you may be forced to pay higher prices, or worse yet, be priced out by a Google slap. However, with a steady effort, you can turn your ad program around with fine tuning and tweaking. Done correctly and you'll be actually paying lower prices AND leaving your competitors behind in rank.
With Google as with any PPC engine, you should always track your content network advertising and your search network advertising separately. You may be losing money on bad keywords as you read this, especially if you are not making adjustments in tracking and monitoring your content network advertising.
Are you an advertiser with a big monthly budget? If so, you can't afford to put down your guard with Google -- it can be costly. We recommend either dedicating more time, allocating more staff and hours or using a professional management company.
Yahoo Search Marketing
Yahoo Search Marketing (Formerly Overture, which was formerly Goto.com) underwent a major change early in 2007 with their Panama update. This overhaul was in direct response to what Google had done in the PPC marketplace. While they no longer dominate the pay per click arena as they had years back, they are still a very worthwhile place to invest.
Yahoo also followed suit with their own "Quality Index" ... again, this is something that you have to work at. Quality scores must be dialed up with continual testing. Yahoo won't slap you with the frequency and force that Google does, but you will suffer if you don't do frequent split testing to refine your ad quality.
With ad copy testing, you want to focus on the three C's: Customer, Competition and your Company. What makes you special from your competition? What makes you more relevant to your customers? Test different ad concepts. Then, when you find a winner, use that as a control and refine your ad with small changes to variables. The key is to consistently test to crank up that Yahoo Quality Index.
MSN AdCenter
Even though MSN was late to the party with pay per click advertising, they shouldn't be ignored. We've noticed some high quality traffic to go along with their very useful targeting capabilities. You'll be able to utilize the same geo-targeting type of local PPC campaigns as the others. Additionally, however, is the ability to target the demographics of users. For example, if you see high conversions on your website for a specific type of visitor, MSN will allow you to raise your bids when it finds those potential clients or consumers using the MSN search network.
Need to import your PPC keywords and campaigns from Google AdWords? MSN recently introduced a new method to do just that. Your expansion is now easier than ever. You'll want to be certain your Google account is refined and optimized, or you will be making the same mistakes with MSN's program as you did in Google. Break down those large Ad Groups with big lists of keywords into tighter and more relevant groups. Doing so will let you target the keywords with more effective, relevant ads. Once again, test and re-test those ads repeatedly.
The Others
With others like Ask and Looksmart, we've seen varied results. You can launch a campaign, see it succeed short term, then absolutely bottom out and put you in the hole. You can't afford to mess around with these results for too long...your budget may not survive. Miva can also have up and down results. Be very cautious with high bids and don't ignore your account for days at a time. Should you still venture into these other search engine markets? Not if you are struggling with managing your other PPC accounts. The good traffic is attainable, but you have to double your efforts on tracking and keep a tight eye on results since things can turn sour fast. Beyond these PPC engines, don't waste time on all the others.
You'll find that the PPC programs of Google, Yahoo, and MSN are probably more than enough work to keep you occupied -- especially if you are playing the game correctly. If you are not doing daily ad split tests, if you aren't keeping track of sales results down to the keyword level, if you are not searching for the money-making keywords that your competition is using, then you are not using the Big Three to the fullest potential. Invest your time, effort and money there before pushing on to others...you will get a better return on your investment.
Continual Effort Pays Off
Ignoring the daily management needs of your PPC accounts will most likely result in bad keywords depleting your funds. On top of that, good keywords are getting more and more expensive because your quality scores are slipping compared to your competitors. Under-performing campaigns cost advertisers a huge chunk of potential business. It's up to you to protect your investment with effective, intelligent supervision of your in-house PPC marketing or by outsourcing this essential work to a professional pay per click management company.
The Big Three in PPC
In the PPC search marketing world, the best results come from Google, Yahoo and MSN. These days, the Big Three share a lot more common ground, offering close to the same sort of PPC services -- geo targeting, setting adds to switch on and off during optimum times, splitting test the copy on your ads, optimizing quality scores, and so on. Google remains dominate in search traffic, but Yahoo and MSN are major players.
AdWords From Google
Quality traffic is important and Google AdWords remains on top in delivering high-volume clicks that count. However, don't sleep on Google's success -- you still need to monitor your results with frequency. With enough the time, knowledge and the right tools, you can do this yourself, or you can outsource all that to a professional PPC management company.
Be aware that Google is not only becoming increasingly competitive, but its pay per click marketplace is also getting harder to ace. These days, there are more variables to consider with "Quality Scores" playing a more important role and more bids turning up "Inactive for Search." One of the keys to maintaining a healthy Google account is to make sure you put in the time to continually test and monitor your relevant keywords. You'll get penalized if you don't -- bid minimums might be increased, you may be forced to pay higher prices, or worse yet, be priced out by a Google slap. However, with a steady effort, you can turn your ad program around with fine tuning and tweaking. Done correctly and you'll be actually paying lower prices AND leaving your competitors behind in rank.
With Google as with any PPC engine, you should always track your content network advertising and your search network advertising separately. You may be losing money on bad keywords as you read this, especially if you are not making adjustments in tracking and monitoring your content network advertising.
Are you an advertiser with a big monthly budget? If so, you can't afford to put down your guard with Google -- it can be costly. We recommend either dedicating more time, allocating more staff and hours or using a professional management company.
Yahoo Search Marketing
Yahoo Search Marketing (Formerly Overture, which was formerly Goto.com) underwent a major change early in 2007 with their Panama update. This overhaul was in direct response to what Google had done in the PPC marketplace. While they no longer dominate the pay per click arena as they had years back, they are still a very worthwhile place to invest.
Yahoo also followed suit with their own "Quality Index" ... again, this is something that you have to work at. Quality scores must be dialed up with continual testing. Yahoo won't slap you with the frequency and force that Google does, but you will suffer if you don't do frequent split testing to refine your ad quality.
With ad copy testing, you want to focus on the three C's: Customer, Competition and your Company. What makes you special from your competition? What makes you more relevant to your customers? Test different ad concepts. Then, when you find a winner, use that as a control and refine your ad with small changes to variables. The key is to consistently test to crank up that Yahoo Quality Index.
MSN AdCenter
Even though MSN was late to the party with pay per click advertising, they shouldn't be ignored. We've noticed some high quality traffic to go along with their very useful targeting capabilities. You'll be able to utilize the same geo-targeting type of local PPC campaigns as the others. Additionally, however, is the ability to target the demographics of users. For example, if you see high conversions on your website for a specific type of visitor, MSN will allow you to raise your bids when it finds those potential clients or consumers using the MSN search network.
Need to import your PPC keywords and campaigns from Google AdWords? MSN recently introduced a new method to do just that. Your expansion is now easier than ever. You'll want to be certain your Google account is refined and optimized, or you will be making the same mistakes with MSN's program as you did in Google. Break down those large Ad Groups with big lists of keywords into tighter and more relevant groups. Doing so will let you target the keywords with more effective, relevant ads. Once again, test and re-test those ads repeatedly.
The Others
With others like Ask and Looksmart, we've seen varied results. You can launch a campaign, see it succeed short term, then absolutely bottom out and put you in the hole. You can't afford to mess around with these results for too long...your budget may not survive. Miva can also have up and down results. Be very cautious with high bids and don't ignore your account for days at a time. Should you still venture into these other search engine markets? Not if you are struggling with managing your other PPC accounts. The good traffic is attainable, but you have to double your efforts on tracking and keep a tight eye on results since things can turn sour fast. Beyond these PPC engines, don't waste time on all the others.
You'll find that the PPC programs of Google, Yahoo, and MSN are probably more than enough work to keep you occupied -- especially if you are playing the game correctly. If you are not doing daily ad split tests, if you aren't keeping track of sales results down to the keyword level, if you are not searching for the money-making keywords that your competition is using, then you are not using the Big Three to the fullest potential. Invest your time, effort and money there before pushing on to others...you will get a better return on your investment.
Continual Effort Pays Off
Ignoring the daily management needs of your PPC accounts will most likely result in bad keywords depleting your funds. On top of that, good keywords are getting more and more expensive because your quality scores are slipping compared to your competitors. Under-performing campaigns cost advertisers a huge chunk of potential business. It's up to you to protect your investment with effective, intelligent supervision of your in-house PPC marketing or by outsourcing this essential work to a professional pay per click management company.
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