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Archive for May, 2009

Traffic is critical element to having success online and by offering bonuses to products other people are offering you can get what I call “bonus traffic”. There are some specific steps that you want to follow in order to approach a potential joint venture partner about how to make money online with bonus traffic.

We know that your intention is to generate more subscribers and make more money…however you need to put that intention aside for a moment. If you start with that attitude then you won’t have success. Instead, the first thing to do is to be a customer in your own marketplace.?That is step one. Please do not try to assume you can skip step one–it does not work if you skip step one.?/p>

Step 1:

Buy the product you want to do a bonus traffic campaign with

It should be a complimentary product
You should have a similar customer demographic
Go through the product
Read it, make sure it is good
Follow the product and get some resultsStep 2:

Approach your potential joint venture partner

Let him/her know you bought their product, tried it and like it
By complimenting them on their product they are more open and receptive to you
Let him/her know you have a complimentary product
Tell them your niche, size of your list
Let them know you think your list would be interested in their product
Let them know you believe their list might be interested in your product and you have an affiliate program with x% commission
Suggest you create a special bonus to introduce their customers to your niche
Unadvertised bonus on their download page where their customers can get your free bonus
The customer clicks a link and goes to your page
In exchange for their name and email address you will give them this free bonusIt is critical that the customer has to go to your page…your squeeze page…where they have to provide you their name and email address in order to get the free bonus. Remember, the point of doing a bonus traffic program is list building…to build a bigger list that is going to make you more money…quickly.

The benefit to you is you have built your list and generated sales. The benefit to your JV partner is you have provided value to their existing customers with a complimentary product…and they have received a commission on any purchases their customers made of your product. The benefit to the customer is they get a product they are interested in that they might not otherwise have known about.

And you have done this for free! It didn’t cost you anything and it didn’t cost your JV partner anything. So because you have provided them, and their customers, value, they are more than happy to keep your link on their download page. That way you will be sent their customers every day…you have just generated free bonus traffic!

That’s how you make money online approaching joint venture partners about bonus traffic! You do your homework, provide great value and build your list all at the same time!

You have a nice website, but you are appalled at the minimal traffic you get and you want to increase your website traffic. How you can increase traffic website without spending a penny? Check out this creative idea to generate free traffic.

Start using services for video sharing such as YouTube that already get huge numbers of people visiting them at every moment of the day. So, get a video from your website and put it on YouTube or other such services that will make sure your videos are seen by a lot of people. People who want to see good content that can be useful, educating content.

For this case, first you need to create short simple videos. You can use products like Camtasia. The best method would be to create videos that can act as a guide for something. Just a bit of experience on any software would do to create such videos. If you are wondering on the topics of these videos, let us take an example. You could create a how-to video for something as common as a software application like Photoshop, that you are accustomed to working with.

If not a software application, you can very well make a virtual tour of either your own website, or any other website, simply using Camtasia. But, just make sure you leave a watermark of your own URL on the video. Now, you can post the same on YouTube, with your own website details in the posting.

Now, this method works very well in marketing strategies too. For those companies selling a software product, they can create a how-to video of their own product with their URL on the video. Multimedia sure can work wonders for you.

Before you purchase your domain name please give some thought to the following:

1) It is common practice to use your site name as your domain name. If your site is known as Netforge then use netforge.net.au as an example

2) Generic names – if you can select a generic domain name then that is fantastic. food.com.au for example, however it is likely that they are already gone. Finding a generic domain name on your particular niche may also be helpful eg. healthyfood.com.au

3) Hyphenated Names – I do not recommend the use of hyphenated names, particularly when it is a name close to your competetors. It is too easy to forget the hyphen and you may end up sending your hard earned traffic to your competitors site.

4) If the .com or .com.au extension is not available then consider the alternative TLD ( Top level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if they’ll sell it to you. They may accept as little as $100. the worst that can happen is they say no.

5) Plurals. Often a domain name will be taken in the singular choice of the word but available in the plural. This comes down to personal choice but beware you do not end up sending traffic to a competitor.

6) Short or Long domains – Short domain names are preffered because they are more memorable to people. Longer names are beneficial to search engines like google who look for keywords in your domain title

7) I am often asked which TLD to pick ? .com, .com.au , .net etc No domain name type is given preference by the search engines but please consider that some search engines such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.com.au which do allow searching of local sites.

Some customers also get re-assurance when they see a local TLD because they know they are dealing with a local company. My advice is to register all of them!

Variations – If your prefered domain name is not available then it may be worthwhile trying a prefix. (domains.com) eg mydomains.com or suffix (domains.com) eg domains4u.com etc

Forums are places where you will get to meet a lot of new people, just for free. That way, you can quite intelligently move about marketing your product and bringing your website into light, thus helping to increase your website’s traffic.

There are some pointers that you need to keep in mind when joining forums.

When you join a particular forum, you make sure your user name is something that is relative to your webpage. Make sure you register your information that seems very catchy and brings attention.

Secondly, your profile should give a lot of information about your website and the product you wish to sell. Don’t forget to mention your URL with your signature whenever you post.

Frequent visits to the forum and active participation will help attract people to yourself and also increase your contacts. Do post in the forum daily in the start while looking out for more information and giving out your information too.

Forums usually have an option to have a display picture. Use your website’s logo or icon for the same or make a new image with your website’s URL displayed in it for better promotion.

At first people might not trust you. You can gain their trust by actively asking questions, answering or giving advice on topics in your niche. This way you will be giving out more information.

Keep an eye out for those threads where you can give out solutions that are related to your website. People will really appreciate if you help them out or at least try to with your response.

Join many forums. Joining a lot of forums will help you come in contact with more people and more sites will have links that lead to your website.

Most segmentation analysis tests for email campaigns will show that the most of all the response you will ever get from a newly registered email name will come to you within the first 6-8 transmissions.

Strategic segmentation for your email list can help you make the most of this valuable information.

There are several ways you can strategically segment your email list: 1. New to file, new customers and leads 2. Source, online offline etc. 3. Recency of purchase 4. Number of emails already sent 5. How much money have they spent

All of these email list segmentation strategies have merit depending on your business model. The way an e-commerce site selling products in a shopping cart will approach customer segmentation strategy will differ from how a lead generation site will approach segmentation.

However, one type of segmentation is always a good bet… new to file email contacts. These folks can be buyers or leads but in both cases they justify a solid segmentation strategy.

New Customers Segmentation: New customer segments should not be simply pooled together with your 12 or 24 month buyer file. Remember, after about 8 transmissions these people are going to start tuning you out. And that’s even if you are relevant and interesting. So, if you are going to get anything good out of your email promotions you better do it in the first 8 sends.

12m and 24 month buyer files often contain mostly one time buyers and customers who have not purchased for a long time. Approaching these folks with discounts and sales focused on “reactivating” makes sense. Most people have tuned you out but it only takes a few responses to make email “pay” for itself. So the average business will continue to blast away at these customers even with the pathetic response rates they get.

Hitting new customer segments with the same sales message you are using to stimulate “reactivations” of older email segments is a mistake. In many cases you are actually down-selling your hottest customers.

Instead these new customer segments should be regarded as prime targets for up-selling and migrating to higher ticket items. This approach will increase the lifetime value of the customer. If you can effectively automate this process then do so. And if your average sale is high enough you may want to actually start manually responding with customized sales pitches to your new customers especially for the first few highly lucrative sends. See email marketing response rates.

New Leads Segmentation Segmentation strategies for new leads (newsletter sign ups, contest entries etc.) are different from new customer segmentation strategies. But some of the same principles apply.

Don’t just throw your new leads into the same pot with all your 12m leads. Again these leads are most likely to reply within the first 6-8 transmissions, after that they start to tune you out regardless of your message. In fact if you are a B2B company trying to convert these leads by phone you may want to hold back from email until you have exhausted the phone. You’ll always get a better response by phone.

If you are approaching new lead segments by email then think of each of your 6-8 first sends as a sequence of persuasion. And this persuasion should be pointing these leads towards higher life time value, higher ticket sales and so forth.

Don’t start off by offering deep discounts and sales or other low margin tactics. Yes, try these methods after all else fails but use these first 6-8 email sends as unique opportunity to develop high margin sales.

Overall Segmentation Strategy When developing your email promotions be sure to use segmentation strategy as a method for making email promotions more profitable.

When you are still new to owning your own web site, there are times when you will look at the CPanel and wonder what in the world does it all mean. There are so many configuration options that it would take many pages to really start to explain what every button is for. So we will start with one that can be useful in the further development of your web site, the sub domain. We will explain what the sub domain is and what you can use it for in the following paragraphs.

A sub domain is an extension of your main domain. For example, if you have a domain that is named “mydomain.com” and you wanted to have a URL of “mysub.mydomain.com”, the “mysub” part is the sub domain. You can use a sub domain for many things but most people use the sub domain to create a section of your web site dedicated to one particular subject. If you had a web site dealing with cars, you could create a sub domain called “ford” to be used as a section of your web site that only dealt with cars and trucks that were made by Ford. The ability to create sub domains can really help your web site stay organized for easy searching. When a sub domain is created it is similar to having a second site set up. Usually you can provide FTP access to the sub domain. This can actually allow you to set up a test portion of your web site (e.g., test.mydomain.com) so that you can test your site without impacting your main site.

That brings me to an interesting use of a sub domain. When you are trying to be indexed by a search engine for a certain particular keyword, a great way to do it is with the use of sub domains. Google and most other search engines see a sub domain just like they do a regular top level domain. This allows you to really optimize your site for a certain keyword without having to buy another domain. Using the “ford” web site as an example again, if we wrote up a section about the F150 we could probably get some traction in Google without the use of a sub domain. But if we decided to create a whole section for the F150 and put in under a sub domain, there is a reasonable chance that Google will give it a little more authority.

The ability to create sub domains can be very useful in developing a successful web site. Although I just discussed using sub domains for potential testing and segmenting your content, there are many valuable uses of sub domains. Log in to your CPanel and test out the sub domain functionality your host allows. While most webhosts offer sub domains as part of their basic hosting packages, you may want to review several web hosts to make sure that you are getting the most flexibility when it comes to sub domain usage.

If you’re using e-mail to generate leads or make sales, you’re probably spending a lot of time honing your message and making sure that it’s persuasive. But do you give equal time, thought, and attention to the short “SUBJECT” line that introduces your main message?

If you don’t, then be afraid. Very afraid. You see, it doesn’t matter how compelling your e-mail offer is, or how brilliantly your message is written. If your subject line isn’t working right, your e-mail will never get opened and your campaign will be a failure.

That’s right. The humble little subject line that announces your e-mail to the world has an enormous influence on campaign results and can make or break you.

Want to handle subject lines the right way? Here are some thoughts that might prove extremely useful . . .

1. Think of the subject line as if it were an envelope.
When you’re creating a paper direct mail package, you know you have to come up with a killer envelope. If the envelope doesn’t get opened, the letter doesn’t get read and you don’t make the sale. Same thing with the subject line. It determines whether the prospect will read your message or trash it.

Of course, getting someone to open a paper envelope is a heck of a lot easier than getting past the subject line. Why? Because with a paper envelope you have plenty of space to write teaser copy and add photography or illustration if it’s appropriate. You can create something unique that stands out from all the other mail in the pile and screams out benefits that will get the prospect to read the letter within.

Subject lines all look the same and have to be kept short. (Never exceed forty characters including spaces.) This means that every subject line must communicate extremely quickly. We’ll take a look at how to do that in a minute, but for now, start thinking of the subject line as one of the keys to e-mail marketing success – not an afterthought!

2. Subject lines are well worth testing.
Robert Mendez (www.nethawk.net) is an e-mail list broker/manager who handles countless e-mailings and is a great source of information. I asked him about his take on subject lines. Here’s what he said, “You should always test subject lines if you have enough names. Five thousand names is the minimum you need for an e-mail test cell. It’s worth doing some testing because a strong subject line can double the response.”

Let’s look at that again on instant replay! “A strong subject line can double the response” – increase it by 100%. In other words, a 4% response rate can turn into an 8% response rate just by using the right subject line!

3. Some thoughts about saying “FREE” in the subject line.
Some people hesitate to use the word “free” in the subject line because they’re afraid they will turn people off. For example, in an issue of Softletter, Michael D’Arrigo, Direct Marketing Manager at ScanSoft, is quoted as saying,”For us, we’ve found that a subject line with ‘free’ is the kiss of death. It will be viewed as spam and won’t be opened.”

Email marketers also have the related concern that if they use the word “free” in the subject line, a filter will kick out their message and it will never get read. I personally believe that this is just another suburban legend and that you really don’t have to sweat it. True. There is some filtering, based on IP numbers, that takes place at the ISP level. And some corporations do some filtering. And, yes, some packaged applications let consumers use filtering. BUT this is only a big problem if you’re selling business-to-consumer junk!

I believe that if you use “free” in the subject line, in well-targeted B2B e-mails that offer the prospect something of value, your message will sail right through unfiltered. Let me add that I know as a personal FACT that one of high-tech’s most aggressive e-mailers uses the word “free” in the subject line and that this line is the consistent winner against other subject lines in rigorous head-to-head tests.

The bottom line? I would not give up on one of the most motivating words in our language because of spam or filter fears. You should definitely do some testing!

4. The right way to write subject lines.
Here’s a mini case study that shows you how to think about putting a subject line together. Here’s the subject line from an e-mail sent by a major marketer that targets small and growing businesses.

SUBJECT: Who’s minding the store?

If you click through to find out more, you get to the message: “Small businesses are more vulnerable to crime than is generally realized, yet the risks to them are not publicized and too few take steps to protect themselves, says a new study. Don’t wait until you are a victim of a crime – take steps now to thwart the bad guys. Here are a few tips” . . . etc.

So what’s going on here? Well, the message itself certainly goes on to provide valuable information that small business managers should know. But instead of saying so directly in the subject line, the writer went for a “teaser” approach: “Who’s minding the store?” This teaser subject line might be O.K. in an ad or flyer but is, I would argue, a big loser as a subject line. Why? Because no benefit is mentioned.

Let’s rewrite the subject line and see if we can do a better job of motivating the reader. We could slice it and dice it a bunch of ways:

SUBJECT: Five ways to prevent store theft
SUBJECT: How to improve store security
SUBJECT: Stop store thieves in their tracks
SUBJECT: Don’t let thieves steal you blind
SUBJECT: Crime prevention basics
SUBJECT: How to prevent store theft

You get the idea. The take-away message? The subject line is a vitally important part of e-mail campaign success and should be the subject of your close attention!

Do you wish to increase your website traffic while not spending too much for the paid page rankings online? Well, here are some good ideas. This may take you some time and some planning, but the end result will be great.

The basic concept of this method is using keywords. Keywords are essential to improve your listings on search engines. That is so because search engine crawlers need text to include in the search results. They will not accept anything else. Those web-page articles that have a lot of important and meaningful keywords will eventually appear higher in the results and website developer needs to keep this in mind.

First and foremost, do not spam your website with random keywords. This will only help you get banned from search engines. You need to eventually work on quality because that is what human readers expect from articles. Otherwise, they will never return to the same website, and your traffic levels will decrease.

Another thing, is that it is not necessary for these keywords to be included only in the body of the text included in your website. You can include the keyword in the URL itself. If not, think of a good name for your website and include it in your URL.

Remember, after all, it is humans who will eventually review your website, value the information and use it if they find it good enough.

While competition with websites portraying the same content is quite overwhelming, it is easy to get carried away with SEO tricks. You should be careful what techniques you use and focus more on building quality and targeting keywords.

Today, many businesses use email marketing to keep in contact with their prospects and clients. HTML emails are widely used for all kinds of professional correspondence. Due to the emergence of new communication platforms, people are reading emails through a number of standalone email clients. When you send an HTML email, you must make sure that it is going to be displayed correctly across various platforms so that your recipients can read it.

In this article, let me share with you 5 tips to design a good email template:

1. Write a good subject line. This is the first thing that your recipients will see when they receive your email. A good subject line will increase the open rate of your email. Therefore, you should spend some effort to craft a good subject line to get the attention of your recipients.

2. Have enough white space in your email. This is important because people have difficulty reading large chunk of text. So make sure that you separate your text into paragraphs and have enough white space in between them. A good practice is to use a horizontal line to separate your paragraphs. This will make reading easier.

3. Use bullets in your content. Breaking down your content into point forms will make it easier for your recipients to read your email. This is because bullets naturally lead the reader from one point to another. This is extremely effective if your message is long. Breaking your content into point forms will ensure that recipients finish reading your email.

4. Use the right text format. Make sure that the text format of the letters is widely used. Today people read emails from various devices. By choosing a universal text format, you can ensure that they will be displayed properly on the devices.

5. Bring across one message per email. You should bring across one message in each email that you send out. By talking about one specific topic in one email, this will ensure that readers get what you mean. When you talk about too many topics, you will make them confused and lessen the chance to get a response from them. Therefore, always limit the scope of your email.

Do not broadcast an email campaign with a lousy email template. The email template should reflect the brand of your company and when it is done properly, you will definitely get a good response from your email campaign. So spend time and effort to design a good one.

You have decided to start your own website, you have purchased a domain name, and now you want to point the name to a different hosting company. To do this you have to transfer your files to your new host by changing your Domain Name Servers DNS.

When you purchase your new domain name your host will provide you with your domain name server details usually by email. File and keep this in a safe place, better still make a hard copy, because if you ever decide to change your hosting you will need this information.

The DNS “Domain Name Server you have just purchased will automatically point to the registrars parked page.You will not need to change your DNS if you have purchased both your domain name and hosting from the same registrar.

But what happens if your hosting is not with the same company where you purchased your domain name? If this was the case your registrar would not know where your site is hosted and your site would not show online.

This is easily fixed, all you have to do is point your registrar toward your hosting company and just link them together.

How to Change your name servers

1. Go to your registrars home page ie GoDaddy

2. Log-in and go to your account

3. Then find “Manage Domains” or something similar and click on this.

4. Select the domain you want to transfer

5. Look for the button marked nameservers/manage nameservers.

6.You will now be given the option to change your nameservers

7. Click on “Custom Nameservers” It may be a little different with your registrar for example, “Edit Nameservers/manage nameservers”etc.

8. A new page will appear and you will see that the current nameserver settings are already filled in.

9. Delete these nameservers and replace them with the nameservers provided by your new hosting company.

Remember the details were sent to you by email and you kept them in a safe place. Right!!

That’s it, done! How easy was that?