Blaine561's Internet Marketing Information Center

Many of us spend a great deal of time and effort trying to find the best strategies to supercharge our eBook selling projects. We find out everything we can about optimal auction start times, listing strategies, pricing techniques and more. We do market research; bring serious copywriting techniques to bear within our auctions and constantly keep our ears open for some new suggestion, hint or wrinkle that will up our eBook sales.

Those qualities, so often exhibited by talented eBay eBook sellers can, however, come with a price. Our constant search for new information and our willingness to dig deep into the subject matter can encourage us to lose track of some very basic principles. The end result of this focus loss is often reduced sales. Even though anyone who is serious about making money with eBook sales should learn as much as they can about all facets of the business, they must also always retain a strong focus on some basics.

Communication is important. If one thinks back to some of their earliest auctions, they can probably remember the fun and excitement of communicating back and forth with prospective buyers who had questions or concerns. Quite often, it was that interaction that made eBay attractive to us and that helped us close sales we might have otherwise lost. As one grows their online business, they need to remember the value of personal and prompt communication. Many eBook sellers, whose attentions are drawn to a thousand other considerations lose track of this important sales key. Answer questions and concerns quickly and promptly. More sales will result.

Repetition can lead to mistakes that go unnoticed. Those who do a great deal of online business tend to rely a great deal on automation. This is the best way to increase efficiency, but it can occasionally lead to errors of oversight. These mistakes may pass by the seller, but are immediately noticed by the buyer. Things like price discrepancies within an auction, wrong titles and other inaccurate information plague eBay auctions and prevent sales from occurring. One should make sure to go through every auction carefully to make sure their semi-automatic techniques did not result in an unintended error.

Paralysis through analysis frequently destroys potential sellers. A seller can become so involved in tweaking systems, learning new things, and searching out perfect information that he or she fails to actually take action. One certainly does want to be well-informed and operating in an optimal fashion. However, too much consideration on the front-end can lead one not to undertake any real action. In order to make a sale, you have to start an auction. Planning and plotting can increase the level of success, but some real action must take place! One cannot allow themselves to become so overwhelmed with details that they never really get started.

As one attempts to grow their online eBook selling career with eBay, it is important to remember that as one advances they must still keep their thoughts squarely upon some of the basics. Things like communication, error-free listings and consistent efforts at selling are essential. The other improvements can make things more profitable, but they are useless if core elements of success are overlooked.

There are a few things that all of the internet’s most popular sites have in common. First, they all made a plan to increase link popularity on their site. Second, they put that plan into action and used a professional to build link popularity for them. Third, they all use quality permanent one way links to their website in order to get more traffic and higher rankings.

Building link popularity for your site is a very time consuming, tedious and boring process. You will spend many hours of time, and often see little in the way of results. Hiring a professional to build your site’s link popularity makes complete sense because you have better things that you could do with your time.

Link popularity is the number of links that direct people to your website and the quality of those links. Search engines like websites that have a lot of incoming links from sites where the links make sense. Link Popularity is the key to earning a place in the results pages of these search engines.

If you want to buy links to your website, you need to make sure that you are going to buy quality incoming links. If you buy links on a site that is not ranked highly, or that the search engines believe are not of good quality your links will not get you as much traffic as you want.

If ranking high in the search engines is important to your web site then you should definitely buy links. When you buy links that are on high ranked sites, it increases the ranking given to your site. There is no easier way to get on the first page of the search engine results than when you buy permanent links.

By far, the best way to do what the most popular sites have done is to hire someone who knows how to make good things happen for your site. If you aren’t convinced, remember that:

1) It matters where your site is listed! Professional link builders know how to build link popularity by creating high-quality permanent links to your website.

2) An SEO specialist will definitely find incoming links and get you better links and higher link popularity than you could do on your own. This is because they have the time to do it – and they know how to do it.

3) You have other things to do with your time. Who doesn’t really? Instead of spending a huge amount of hours trying to build you link popularity you can free yourself up to do anything else.

Hire a professional to build your link popularity when they buy permanent one way links to your site on your behalf! Be like the best sites around, and relax while you enjoy your success.

Research shows that many people love to use the web to communicate with other people around the world. Some people will use the web primarily to talk with family and friends, but most people enjoy talking to the complete strangers they meet via chat rooms or message forums. It was once unrealistic to think social bonds could be created this way, but today these communications are completely accepted. With more people using the web for this type of communication, website operators are beginning to utilize the “chat” trend.

The way website operators do this is by establishing their own online communities. They can do this in several ways. One way website operators can create online communities is by offering chat functions on their website. By creating chat rooms for visitors to utilize, website operators are subtly inviting visitors to return as frequently as they wish. Many visitors might come with the intention of making a short visit, but then may try the chat room out. If they enjoy their conversations with others there, it is likely they will return frequently to chat again. To make this work however, there will need to be someone in the room available to chat at most hours. You may have to assign people to take on this task at first, while the room’s participants grow. After the room takes off however, the members will likely maintain it themselves.

Another way to build an online community on your site is by creating message boards for visitors to post on. Message boards are another popular way to get visitors to become part of your website’s community. You can offer boards for general chat or for specific topics. You can incorporate your website’s subject into the message boards as well. For instance, if your site was mostly about computers, you could offer a message board where visitors could post questions and get answers from experts and other visitors as well. This is a great way to get people to keep coming back to your site. Not only will people who post begin to rely on your site for information but they will likely also develop “relationships” with other posters and use your board as a place to communicate with them.

When setting your online community up, think about exactly what you want to do. If you are relying on the community to bring most of your traffic, you probably want to make it easy to access from your homepage. You might make it the largest link or the top link on the page. Use different colors and fonts to get the attention of those who visit your site. Making your site easy to navigate is a great way to get people to participate. The goal is to get the attention of your visitors. If you are placing a lot of emphasis on the online community function on your website, then they will be more likely to use it.

You can always offer a small chat area right on your homepage. This can be a great idea for those website operators who want to place the largest emphasis as possible on their online community function. It can however distract viewers from seeing other areas of your website, so be careful when setting your homepage up in this manner. The best thing to do is to create an easy link right to the chat or message area from the top half of your homepage. This allows the user to get right to the intended area.

With thousands of online users spending large amounts of time participating in online communities like chat rooms and message boards, it is logical to believe these functions would help increase traffic on any website. This is an easy and inexpensive way to draw traffic to your site and can be a lot of fun for everyone involved. If you think this may work for you, simply sit down and decide which method to use. Then choose the best plan for adding the online community to your actual site, whether it is on the homepage or a secondary page. Once everything gets rolling, you will be shocked at how effective establishing an online community can be for increasing your website traffic.

Dear fellow netrepeneur. Maybe we share the same problem.

We have a great website, but little or NO visitors. Now what is a website without traffic?

It’s like an old book lying full of dust cause nobody uses it.

What we want is traffic and loads of it. And would it not be great if we can get it for FREE? So how do we go about to get this FREE TRAFFIC? You know, theres a lot of Article Directories spread accross the internet which give Article Writers (Authors) the opportunity to post their articles there for free with a free backlink to their sites.

All you have to do is to register with these Article Directories, activate your account, create a penname and then add your articles. And this is exactly what I used to do. But let me tell you (not that you are not aware of it), IT IS A TEDIOUS TASK. I mean, to addone Article to ALL these directories manually can take days or even weeks of hard work.

I wondered if there was’nt a program available which could assist me with this task and found quite a few article submitters available. The only problem was that some Article Distributors was not free and those that were had some restriction (like it will post to only a certain amount of article directories).

You’ll have to buy the full version to get the most out of them.

Others could not post to the correct Categorie at the Article Directories ( it will post an article about dogs under Finance for example). Now that is very unproffesional.

So started my journey to try and create a program that could just do everything the others could not.

1. AUTO-CREATE ACCOUNTS AT THE DIRECTORIES.

2. AUTO-CREATE PENNAMES AT THE DIRECTORIES.

3. AUTO-DELETE PENNAMES AT THE DIRECTORIES.

4. AUTO-POST ARTICLES TO THE MOST RELEVANT CATEGORY TOTHESE DIRECTORIES.

And guess what? I accomplished it. And noe I want to share it with you at absolutely NO COST.

Maybe you think that you can’t write an Article? Let me tell you. YOU ARE WRONG!!!! I had the same thought at first, but what are you reading now? My article of course. You can write about anything under the sun.

You can even write an article about how you created your first website, or how you struggled to get traffic.

The sky is the limit. Below you will find a link to my site “Super Article Submiiter” where you can Auto-Post your articles in no time ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE!!!

Not all traffic is the same. Getting a gazillion hits is great, but not if it is from random subjects and subjects. You want to focus on traffic that has a reasonable chance of converting.

Where To Get The Traffic You Want

Many sites make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. It is far better to stick to a specific service or product than it is to offer limited options to customers. If you are selling hiking gear, be the best damn hiking gear site on the net and nothing else. This same problem arises when sites target traffic generation strategies.

The key to cost effective marketing is to get worthwhile web site traffic. At first blush, getting as much traffic as possible, regardless of how, sounds like a smart move. It is not. Doing so wastes your money, distracts you from what you should be doing and diverts your time from doing just that. If you are paying for traffic, you must find credible traffic sources.

Credible traffic is simply traffic from sources and locations that are relevant to your site. If you have looked into generating traffic, you have probably seen offers of 100,000 hits for $50. Yes, you will get 100,000 hits. Of course, the traffic is coming off of free lottery sites or the visitors are being paid to visit your site. This traffic is not credible and will not convert into revenues.

The best place to find credible web site traffic is Google and Overture. These are pay-per-click search engines that list your ads directly on their search results. This means you can specify the keyword phrases you want to be listed under, to wit, targeting your advertising to your market. You can also create filters that limit the ad placements to searches from certain geographic locations, such as the United States or Europe. This further targets your traffic by excluding clicks from some country which you can’t possibly do business with.

You can also get credible traffic from web sites and traffic vendors. The sites handle it differently, but you can often buy ad space on their sites in the form of a banner. There are some credible services out there, but there are a lot more dubious ones. Personally, I do not use any of them, but it is your money.

Focusing your marketing is important if you want a good return on investment. You can get credible web site traffic from a lot of sources, but Google and Overture are the best.

As the industry of online auctions continues to boom, the level of competition among the retailers also keeps getting higher. This competition makes the online shops to be very alert and updated on what the other stores are selling to make sure that it would be their prices that would be most appealing for online consumers.

It is extremely easy to find and buy anything and everything online. The diversity of the online shopping marketplace is amazing because of its global aspect. You have endless possibilities. For the convenience of online shoppers, the number of discounts in internet stores have also been growing continuously.

There are literally thousands and thousands of online stores that continue to thrive and they all provide businesses and individuals with an electronic method of buying services and products. They provide the access to the widest variety of merchandise in the comfort of their offices or homes.

Here are some of the more popular online stores or marketplaces that truly provide great products offering and service.

1. eBay

eBay is probably the most famous online auction. Consumers are able to find all kinds of items – from books to gardening tools to appliances to clothing to baby products to electronic gadgets and even cars and real estate.

2. Amazon

This would be perhaps the second largest online store, which hosts both online stores and auctions. Although Amazon also offers the same products that eBay sells, their reputation mainly lies on the category of books and video entertainment.

3. Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart is an online store, which offers a wide range of merchandise as well. However, they also offer internet services, as well as questions regarding taxes at the start of the year. This makes Wal-Mart a great place to shop and get information.

4. QxBid 

Free Online Auctions With free Store

Watch out for a shift in the pay-per-click (PPC) industry, happening right now! This shift is finally going to give smaller search engines and directories the ability to tap into the PPC market, currently monopolized by the big guns online (Google, Yahoo & MSN). They will attain this lofty goal by banding together and delivering paid ad placements on a mass community scale for a fraction of the cost.

More and more advertisers are going to want to advertise through the ISEDN because of the sheer amount of exposure that they will be able to receive through all the search engines and directories partnered together through this network.

I was able to be the first to interview Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, Inc., the parent company of ExactSeek.com.

The Independent Search Engine & Directory Network (ISEDN) was an outgrowth of ExactSeek’s commitment to bring affordable and effective search advertising to the web community. Although ExactSeek was successful in partnering with a number of search engines and directories, it became apparent that popularization of a new pay-for-inclusion program would be better served by an active and independent association of search engines and directories than by a single engine.

Here are some excerpts from that interview:

Martin: “When was the ISEDN formed? ( http://www.isedn.org )”

Mel: “The organization was officially founded in June of this year, although the idea for a network of this kind was being discussed for several months previous to that. The ISEDN website, however, is only a few days old.”

Martin: “How many members does the ISEDN network have right now?”

Mel: “47 members at the moment, but the network has been acquiring new members at a rate of 3 – 5 per week.”

Martin: “What kind of market reach can the network deliver?”

Mel: “It really depends on how big the network becomes. Some search engine and directory members have reported 10,000,000+ searches/month but, given the rapid growth of the ISEDN and the fact that it’s only a few weeks old, we really haven’t had the opportunity to determine the total number of search impressions the network can deliver. We expect to receive specific numbers from the members in the coming weeks which will enable us to provide a more accurate picture of the network’s search reach. My best guesstimate right now is that pay-for-inclusion listings are displayed approximately 120 million times per month. Of course, that figure will grow as the ISEDN grows.”

Martin: “Why should advertisers choose the ISEDN network over Google or Yahoo?”

Mel: “The most obvious reason is cost. An advertiser buying a 3 or 12 month listing is looking at a cost of $3 – $4 a month. I’m not aware of any other engine that can match what the ISEDN offers in terms of value or exposure. Where else can you buy targeted keyword terms for less than $5 a month and get top 10 exposure for your site listings across 45+ search engines and directories?”

Martin: “You’re right, that is amazing!”

Martin: “Because of the sheer distribution size this could potentially have, what preventive measures are being implemented for click fraud?”

Mel: “In the ISEDN advertising model there is no incentive for click fraud to occur. You pay a one time fee for your selected keyword term and that’s it. Competitors or bots could click on your ad repeatedly and it wouldn’t cost you a penny more. With the monetary motive for click fraud removed, it’s unlikely to be a problem.”

Martin: “What does the future hold for the ISEDN?”

Mel: “It’s a little early for me to speculate on how the ISEDN might evolve. ExactSeek is just one member. Future plans will depend on member participation and input in the coming months. What I would like to see is for the ISEDN to become a counter weight to the gradual monopolization of search on the Web by engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. I would also like to see the ISEDN contribute in other areas related to search such as search relevance and possibly the support of open source search software. In the long term, I believe the Web and searchers in general will be better served by diversity than by monopoly.”

Martin: “Are members going to decide the future of the network?

Mel: “The short answer is yes, they will. To function effectively, the ISEDN will in time need to implement some kind of governing structure that determines the organization’s future course. What that structure is and how the ISEDN evolves will depend on input from the members. Initially, direction and objectives will most likely be determined by majority concensus.

We’ve just added a private member discussion forum to the ISEDN website which will allow members to voice their views on issues such as the network’s direction, objectives, online advertising, governing structure, network promotion and other topics of relevance to the membership.

Martin: “So will any of the discussions from the network forum be opened up to the public?”

Mel: “Eventually, yes. Assuming public interest, we’ll setup discussion forums that allow webmasters and/or siteowners to ask questions and provide feedback to individual ISEDN members or to the membership as a whole. If we go this route and, I expect we will, it should help to improve communication between searchers and search providers. It should also help raise general public awareness of the many excellent directories and search engines on the Web that currently are under the radar.”

Martin: “So how does the advertising portion work?”

Mel: “Every ISEDN member is provided with an XML feed to implement within their search results or directory listings. The feed can be modified by the individual members so that pay-for-inclusion listings are displayed in a way that matches their site look and feel, but regardless of how the listings are displayed, advertisers are guaranteed top 10 exposure across the entire ISEDN network. Premium placement of this kind is made possible by the fact that we limit the number of times any one keyword term can be purchased and because all paid listings are rotated in the SERPs (search engine result pages) on each individual engine and directory.

Surveys have consistently shown that few searchers look at more than 30 search results for any given search query. The ISEDN advertising model takes this into account and limits the sale of any keyword term to 30. If a keyword term has been sold less than 10 times, the paid listing almost always appears on the first page of search results (depends on how many listings an ISEDN member displays per page) although not always in the same position. If a keyword term has been sold more than 10 times then paid listings begin to rotate between the SERPs. On sold out keyword terms, the worst case scenario for an advertiser would be that his listing would appear on the first page of results roughly once of every 3 searches on his keyword term. This is somewhat offset, however, by the fact that the system supports broad keyword matching as well as exact keyword matching.

Martin: “With this first come, first serve program – Are you worried that bigger companies will buy out all the keywords available?”

Mel: “Not really. There are literally millions of keyword term combinations available. As the more obvious terms are bought out, it might require more creative thinking on the part of advertisers to come up with good searchable terms, but other than that, I don’t anticipate a problem. Based on current trends, many buyers either forget to renew their keywords or simply let their listings expire. The end result is that thousands of keyword terms will be rolling over on a continual basis. In the event that the program becomes so wildly popular that keyword availability does become a problem, we may have to look at changing the parameters of the system to accomodate demand, but that’s unlikely in the forseeable future.”

THIS IS AN ADVERTISER’S DREAM!

Anytime a PPC or paid inclusion ad can get distributed through an entire network of competitors, it has the potential to be very powerful and deliver a lot of quality results. Personally, I would much prefer to advertise within 100 websites rather than just one. The power of advertising is in the numbers!

This couldn’t have come at a better time. The SEO industry is crying for quality PPC alternatives. Google’s recent battle with click fraud has left many advertisers world wide wondering if they should really keep their entire internet advertising budget within one basket.

Increase Your ROI Through Smaller Programs Online:

More and more, Smartads is recommending paid advertising in smaller, more tightly knit search engines and directories to our clients. ROI (Return on investment) is very important to the adverising industry, and we have found that advertising in smaller ventures rather than the bigger gorillas online, brings better results.

The reason for this is simple:

* – Less competition

* – Greater targeted audience

* – More local opportunities

* – More exposure for your money

In the old days, creating smaller, more targeted PPC campaigns used to be a lot of work for the marketing professional to research and maintain. The ISEDN has made that job a lot easier for us to maintain on a larger scale. Why would spend hours trying to find smaller directories and other programs, when you can find them under one umbrella?

The object to successful advertising is to find a method of conveying your information to as many people as possible, while keeping the cost on the advertising low to begin with. This is the easiest way to generate traffic, and retain your profits. Google Adwords is a great method of getting both of these objectives done and making your site successful. It is very important to try and maintain a low click through cost when trying to target the appropriate customers.

It is no secret that pay per click can really make your business swell with traffic and customers, by placing the highest bid on a keyword, or keywords you can get great page ranking when someone types your keyword into their browser for a search. If you have heard of Google Adwords you will know that it is not really a pay per click search engine, but a very powerful Google tool that can be used as an advertising template. It is said that the largest Internet based network for marketing is indeed Google. It is a global industry and is a very good way to get exposure on the Internet. If you are interested in the Google Adwords you can find it on just about every page that Google showcases, their ad can be found in a little rectangle by the organic search results that are free.

The basic premise of the Google Adwords realm is quite simple, the member makes their own advertisement, and then has to bid on a keyword, this key word will then trigger the next step of the process. The next step is where the appearance of the ad can be showcased, to the viewers online. A members site consists of approximately 25 words or characters, this will include spaces so be mindful, it will also allow for a description segment of up to 70 words or characters, again spaces included in the total so you must watch what you are using as description. The great thing about this feature is your site will be posted within just a few minutes of you submitting it to Google. It could even become one of the sites that are sponsored, where they will sit on the right hand column of the search engine pages.

Google’s Adwords runs a little differently than the standard pay per click programs, it is not entirely based on the bid you place on the keyword. It has other factors penciled into the equation, such as the click through rate, plus the cost per click. This in turn dictates what your page ranking will be in the end of the ratio. You will need a steady flow of traffic to your site prior to this method to be effective, so it is best to get a good game plan in motion.

Free traffic? The other day I saw that someone had been putting post-it stickers with the name of their website on bus stop benches and telephone poles. How many ways can you get free web site traffic? Who knows, but here are seven ways to get you started.

1. Online classified advertisements. Search “free advertising” or “free ads”, and you’ll find there are many places that you can advertise for free. Few of them seem to be of any value, but I have been using two that work well. Place a few ads, then check your reports to see if they are bringing in traffic. Start regularly using the ones that deliver.

2. Link exchanges. Link exchanges with other web sites help you get free traffic in two ways: traffic directly from the other site, and traffic from the search engines, because the link helps your ranking with them. Find sites that have a theme similar or related to yours, and send out nice e-mails suggesting an exchange.

3. Post in discussion forums. This can be a great source of traffic for some sites. You just talk about things of interest to you, and get free traffic to your web site (always sign off with a link to your site). If you link to subscription pages for newsletters or e-courses you offer, you’ll get repeat visits from the traffic. Don’t spam, or you’ll be kicked out but true participation makes a relevant link okay in many forums.

4. Search engine submissions. Don’t wait for search engines to find you. Automatically submit to 15 of them at www.freewebsubmission.com. You can also submit manually to Google (www.google.com/addurl.html). Ultimately, search engines will be some of your primary sources of free traffic.

5. Submit to directories. First do a search for niche directories for the topic of your website. Type in “directory + online games,” or whatever your site is about. Many general directories also accept submissions for free. The value of directories is not direct traffic, however (you won’t get much). The value is in the links, which help your ranking (and therefore traffic) with the search engines.

6. Write and submit testimonials. If you love an e-book or other online product, tell the author, and let her know she can use your testimonial. Of course, mention that you’d appreciate it if she left the link to your site (under your name) active. Good testimonials are valuable, and you’ve probably seen them with a name and link attached.

7. Submit articles. This is one of the best ways to generate free web site traffic. In fact, it’s why I wrote this. An article is valuable because of the “resource box,” or “about the author box” at the bottom, where there is always a link. If I leave you intrigued, and wanting more, you might click through. This is a great way to generate free traffic.

As more and more people are hosting their own webpage or pages, advertisers have learned how to make contact with the audiences who visit the pages. And not just randomly either; there are now advertising programs that target ads specifically to the site that the person is viewing. They are called contextual advertising programs because they search through the context and content of a page and identify keywords. They return ads to that page that the program believes would be relevant and interesting to the viewer. For example, if you are visiting a website on low fat recipes, you might find ads about low fat products or weight loss products.

Website owners aren’t the only ones using this form of advertising to generate revenue. You’ll see these ads on search engine pages themselves. For example, on Google, the ads appear in a column on the right hand side of the results page. The keywords you enter in the search box are used to target ads to you. Advertisers are hoping that the short ad they supply will lure you to their site, where hopefully you’ll either order their product or use their service.

Website owners can now earn money by allowing contextual advertisers to place ads on their webpages. The more people visit and click the ads, the more money the advertisers will pay to the website owner. Many website owners make a considerable stream of income from these programs. But the ads have to be well targeted in order to get people to click. Which is why right now there is so much excitement about a new contextual advertising program being tested and prepared for the market. Everyone out there making money on contextual advertising is waiting to see if the Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) product will return better results than the leading Google Adsense product.

At the moment, YPN is still in beta testing. A group of users were invited to trial the product and the reviews on blogs and postings all over the web are somewhat consistent on one aspect. As of now, it seems that YPN is not returning ads that are as relevant as the ones that Adsense users are finding. For example, one blogger reported that on a website on PHP programming, YPN returned ads for a florist and for a phone service provider. The blogger couldn’t understand what words the YPN program picked up for the florist. But it was the word ‘hello’ that apparently signaled the ads regarding the phone service.

Additionally, some users have complained that YPN doesn’t seem to update earnings and visitor information as often as Adsense. So website owners have to wait to learn if changes they have made have actually impacted the visitors that they get. However, although neither program will release payment schemes until you register as a user, it seems that YPN is paying more per click than Adsense. But the feeling is that payments will be made more appealing long enough to get website owners to switch from Adsense to YPN, but then prices will even out. Some argue that in the long run it won’t matter if YPN pays more if they can’t improve their ad relevancy because they won’t get the number of clicks from visitors to see a real difference in their earnings.

As YPN is being tested, they are getting opinions and feedback from the participants. So in time, the service may be improved. However, competition for Adsense is a healthy thing. It will force both companies to continually strive to improve their service and offerings so that webmasters can continue to benefit from a healthy stream of income in the future.