23 Jun 08 How To Find A Profitable Market: Online Business Tactics

How To Find A Profitable Market For Your Online Business

The common mistake committed by most novice online businessmen is coming up with a product without determining a hungry market. Why is this dangerous? Because the product might not cater to a certain demand. Without demand, no one would buy the said product, and such would surely be disastrous for any business.

So the first lesson in any internet marketing course should be about finding profitable markets.

Now, despite how intimidating this subject may sound, it’s actually quite easy to pull off. All you need is an idea. Yes, like one of those eureka moments. This idea can come to you at any time… while watching a movie, for example. Or while reading the morning papers. Or while viewing the billboards by the road your way to drop off the kids at school. This idea may also be inspired by your current or previous profession, or a passion you nurtured when you were still enrolled as a student.

Popularity: 24%

16 Jun 08 Blog SEO tactics: Get indexed by search engines

Have You Heard About The Blog And Ping Combo Tactics To Get In All Search Engines?

You may have a new website you want to get indexed with the various search engines at the soonest possible time. Or you may have an existing website which you want to position well in the search engine results. Or you may have a good performing website which you want to remain competitive. Whatever your reason may be, you’re sure to benefit from the blog and ping combo.

Now, you may have heard or read about this before, but your never realized how it works. Or this may be the first time you have been acquainted with this surefire technique. Regardless, much can be learned from this article as we discuss the basics and the mechanics of the blog and ping strategy.

Popularity: 25%

Tags: blogs

08 Jun 08 5 Article Marketing Tactics and Techniques

5 Things You Always Wanted To Ask About Article Marketing

Article marketing is most probably the most effective link building strategy in existence. Picture it this way. Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you will submit. Inside this resource box, you could include a link to your website. If you will submit just one article to 100 article directories, you’d immediately receive 100 back links to your website. There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web!

Now, if you will submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you’ll get 500 back links easily! The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks. We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites! Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your own pages’ search engine standing!

All seems rosy with article marketing, but as with everything else, there are doubts as to its real nature.

Let’s have a no hold barred, truly in depth discussion about the matter, by asking the questions you always had in your mind but had no opportunity to set loose. Let’s begin.

1. If I will submit the same article to many article directories, won’t it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?

No, it won’t. Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines would assume that the submitted content is their original work. This is the reason why a lot of article directories are pretty confident about the articles they display. The problem that they encounter, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services. They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR articles as well as articles imbued with affiliate links.

2. Does this mean that I could submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

No! Since the search engines would assume that the higher ranking websites are the originators of the content, your web pages would be distinguished as duplicates, and this could possibly lead to the de-indexing of your website. You wouldn’t want this to happen.

3. Could I submit as many articles as I could to as many article directories as possible?

Yes, you could! In fact, this is very much advised, to build up your link popularity and secure for your website a great page rank.

However, please bear in mind that search engines, and Google in particular, become quite wary about a website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links. It is advised that before you submit another article to the article directories, you have to wait for at least 3 weeks after your last submission.

4. My page views are quite low. Does article marketing really work?

Yes, article marketing does work! If your article’s page views remain in low levels, ask yourself the following:

1. Is the subject of your article interesting enough? Does it cater to a wide audience?
2. Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?
3. Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation?
4. Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you want to share?

These are the factors that contribute to low page views. Doing some necessary editing to correct these problems can dramatically increase the number of times your article would be viewed. Additionally, some article directories really attract a few visitors. But the popular ones like www.ezinearticles.com , www.goarticles.com and www.isnare.com should give you hundreds of readers in a month’s time.

5. How sure am I that my article would be kept intact by people who would use it in their own websites or eZines?

You can never be sure. This is why you have to run your own check from time to time. Search for unique phrases in your article, and click on the results. Determine if the webmaster honored your resource box. If he did not, you could ask him to include the same, or you could file a complaint with the article directory so that they themselves could act on the matter. Vigilance is the key.

Popularity: 24%

Tags: article marketing

05 Jun 08 What to Sell at EBAY to Make Money?

How To Discover Hot Products You Could Sell At eBay

If you have decided to earn some serious cash from the number one auction site in the World Wide Web, then you will have to know what sells well. Indeed, eBay may be visited by millions of people per day, but with thousands of auctions going on at any given time, it would be hard to generate great interest on your products if the market isn’t really hot for them. The result can be quite catastrophic. You might end up paying mounted fees without realizing any profit, since no one would bid on your auctions.

So how do you know what products would be the hottest sellers on eBay? Here are some tips you could employ.

• Offline research. Determining what sells well is a matter of studying the general market. This entails research. Check out your local newspapers. Which products are being aggressively advertised by two or more companies? Chances are, there is a bustling market for them. Check out the classifieds as well. Which products are being sold the most? Also, there is often a “looking for” or “LF” section in the said classified. What are the advertisers looking for exactly? How large is the demand for such products? Your inspiration to determine what to sell should not be limited to what you already know. Consult with established resources to help you come up with great ideas.

• Using eBay Tools. Your eBay seller account should also provide for you a way to know the website’s most popular auctions. This should give you an idea about what sells well, and how much they are going for. Simply visit the Seller Central area for a rundown of the day’s top auctions, and try to view the same with a critical mind. Determine if the demand is really huge, or if the price is responsible for pushing the demand to the limit. If the latter, determine as well if you’ll be able to compete with the said price.

• Online research. The internet is a humongous resource center for your market research campaign. There are many tools that you could find in this intricate network, both free and paid, that could help you discover what any market is really looking for. Try www.nichebot.com for example and type in any subject that comes to mind. On the results page, view the number of times the subject and its related inquiries were searched for. This should give you an idea about how popular the subject really is. From there, you could come up with relevant products to help you cater to the demand in the aforementioned market. Another alternative, which is more convenient for your purposes, would be www.andale.com . This is a paid service that would deliver a list of hot selling items at eBay, as well as some tips on when to start your auction and how to proceed with the same.

• Keep in touch with the times. Generally speaking, what is popular in the real world should be popular on eBay as well. Merchandise for the latest movies often become highly sellable items in this auction site. Billboard chart toppers are also in high demand.

• Speculate. Interested with the latest developments in technology? Familiar with the upcoming releases of your favorite companies? You could play the speculation game, and plan before these items are even released. You could easily determine the demand for them by employing the steps we have enumerated above. Additionally, you would also want to keep abreast with subjects that are enjoying a renaissance of sorts. Culture, after all, comes around in circles. What were popular some decades ago would become collector’s items eventually. It’s just a matter of knowing when the resurgence would be experienced.

Popularity: 21%

03 Jun 08 How To Build Digital Store

Make money with your very own Digital Store!

What good are your products if you don’t have a place where you could sell them, right? Think of the internet as one big marketplace. Naturally, to be able to sell your wares in a venue like this, you will need a store… a digital store. This digital store takes the form of your website.

A website that sells information products does not have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler it is, the better it would be. Designing your website would depend on what products you’re selling, and how many products you’re actually offering.

If you’re just offering one product for sale, you could simply host one page for the same. This page is called a sales page, or a sales copy. A sales page is where you could try to persuade your visitors to purchase your products. This can be done in a variety of ways. Usually, internet marketers hire a copywriter to prepare a sales page for their goods. However, copywriters don’t come cheap. Some of them charge thousands of dollars per sales page. Some even charge a percentage of the sales you’ll be able to generate, as their fee. If the copywriter is good, trust that whatever he will come up with would most certainly result in quite a number of sales, and eventual profit, for your online business.

The question that needs to be asked, really, is if you have the resources to procure the services of one?

Even if you don’t have such allotted resources for such, you could still prepare your own sales copy. Simply keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Your sales page should start with an attention grabbing headline. If you’re selling an eBook about dog grooming for example, you could emphasize on the best benefit that your readers would be able to derive from the same. Here is an illustrative headline: “Finally, An Ebook That Reveals Easy And Comprehensive Steps In Keeping Your Canine Companion Squeaky Clean!” Remember, a headline should be able to grab your visitors’ attention to compel them to read the rest of what you have to say. Always be guided by this rule.

• After your salutations (“Dear Sir/Ma’am;” “Dear Internet Friend;” Dear Valued Customer;” etc.), you should first introduce who you are and what your business is about. This would make your readers know that they are dealing with a credible expert in the field. Also, this would diminish the anonymity that sometimes makes them hesitant to trust you with their hard-earned money.

· Establish the necessity for the product you’re about to offer. Discuss the market and why there is a need for your goods. This can be done by enumerating some problems with the way things are. With our running example of dog grooming, you could create a semblance of necessity for your eBook if you would discuss the rather unpleasant smell that unclean pups would leave in the house, or the fur that comes off their bodies because of their lack of grooming, etc.

• Introduce your product. Include the specifications for the same.

• Enumerate ALL the benefits that could be derived from the use of your product.

• Lastly, create a sense of urgency. Many internet marketers label this as a “call to action.” This is where you would be able to get them off their seats, in a manner of speaking, and punch their credit card details to order your product. This is the most important component of your sales page.

A sales page can easily become the entirety of your website by itself. Simply add a payment button that would lead your would-be customers to the payment processing page. This is dependent on the merchant account you will procure. PayPal, 2checkout, and ClickBank are the most popular payment processors for online businesses.

If you’re offering multiple products for sale, you would need a sales page for each of them. Your landing page (the page that would load up when the visitor would type in your URL) should contain links to each of your product’s sales page.

Popularity: 33%

Tags: digital store

01 Jun 08 Affiliate Marketing Website Models For Online Business

Website Models For Online Business

A registered domain name would give you an address in the virtual world. A web hosting service would give you a lot. It’s time to build your house.

But there are many kinds of houses, with each type serving a particular need. In the same light, there are many kinds of websites, and each type would also serve a particular need. Our goal right now is to determine the kinds of websites you could create to best serve you affiliate marketing concerns.

As an affiliate, here are a number of website models you could decide to employ. Let’s take a look at them.

A Review Center

You could create a website, preferably using a blogging software like that offered by www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com , which seeks to review the products that are released in the market. Here’s the deal, though. Review the products you are promoting. Naturally, you’d want your reviews to be favorable for the affiliate merchant’s offerings. So stress the beneficial points of the products so that your visitors may be encouraged to click on your affiliate link and be redirected to the affiliate merchant’s sales page.

An Affiliate Mall

An effective way of promoting your affiliate links is through an affiliate mall. You could make your website into an online catalogue of sorts. Display the products you are promoting, and attach your affiliate links. Provide a short but encouraging description for each product. Also include a small image of the product itself (as an affiliate, you are allowed to use the affiliate program’s images for your promotional campaigns, so you won’t be violating any copyrights by doing this).

This setup is quite empowering for your visitors. They are given the option to choose which among the products you are pre-selling would be most advantageous for them.

A Content Site

Content is king on the internet. People surf the World Wide Web in search for information. If you have the information they need, then you’re in business. You could focus on unique and quality information for your website, and include your affiliate links by way of recommendation or direct announcement.

There are many kinds of content sites which you could decide to build:

• a news site which offers the latest information on the market you will be catering to;
• an information hub containing guides and general information about the same market;
• a download center for valuable products you’re freely offering (this is great for a viral marketing campaign, which we will discuss in subsequent lessons)

An Opt-In Page

You will not be able to win all of them. You won’t even be able to win a majority of them. The best thing you could aim for is to gather the “yes” visitors, try your best to change the mind of the “no” visitors, and capture the contact information of the “maybe” visitors so that you could continue to convince them for a future sale. And this you could do with a mailing list.

By having them subscribe to your mailing list, you’d be able to contact them at any time, with new offers, or perhaps with some valuable tidbits that would warm them up to purchase what the affiliate merchant is selling. All you need is an account with an excellent autoresponder service, which you could integrate in such a page so that it will capture prospective leads on auto-pilot.

You could employ this strategy on any of the website models we have mentioned above, or you could make a web page specifically designed to capture the aforementioned contact details.

Popularity: 30%

Tags: affiliate marketing