23 November 2007

Tips To Achieving A Successful Web Site

1. Choose a Niche - Today, anyone can have a website and sell merchandise or services on the internet. The choices are endless and only limited by your imagination. If you are already in a business and don’t currently have a website, then it’s simply a matter of deciding what name to chose. If you are thinking about setting up your first website and aren’t sure what niche to chose, you might consider a favorite hobby. I’ve always liked to collect & repair antique radios, so I setup a website called Radio Exchange.net The fastest way to achieve success and a high ranking on the internet is to build a website around a theme and niche which does not have a large amount of competition.

For instance, if you were to start a web hosting site, it would be an up hill battle because there are thousands and thousands of hosting websites already on the internet fighting to be seen in the top 10 or 20 listings of the major search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google. The more competition, the more costly and time consuming it is to get your website seen.

I know of a guy who used to drive a van for a courier delivery service for a living. He started a expedited transportation website on a shoestring budget several years ago. Today his website is one of the most successful in the US for the expedited transportation industry.

Another guy I know loved to collect scale model steam engines, so he built a simple website with photos of his collection. Before long, he started getting inquiries from other collectors as to where they could buy some like his and where to get parts. He began selling parts and hard to find steam engines to collectors around the word. He also added a paid ad section to his site. These are two examples of how you can turn a job or hobby into a successful, money making website. There are still many untapped, niche markets available. You can do the research on your own or a detailed report on 109 Untapped Markets is available for download.

2. Purchase a Domain Name Think of a domain name which uses the words which describes your business or what you will be selling. If your domain name contains the keywords which describe your business, you may rank higher than with names which do not.

For instance, if you are a realtor located in Orlando Florida it would be a good idea to register the domain name www.OrlandoFloridaRealEstate.com/net or org or www.Orlando-Florida-Real-Estate.com/net or org.

A scientific way to determine the best name to use is to run keyword popularity searches by using Overture's Keyword Tool at http://inventory.overture.com/ . When you type in keyword phrases, the tool tells you how many times any given keyword phrase was searched across the internet for the previuos month. Once you determine the name you want to use, you can search to see if it’s availabe and register it at a domain registration / hosting service.

3. Set Up Web Hosting - Web Hosting is what connects your website to the internet so it can be viewed by people around the world. Prices for hosting service range from free (I would not recommended a free service - you get what you pay for) to $39.95 per month which is on the high end. Some hosting companies charge a setup fee and demand a year commitment. I would not use any hosting service which charges a setup fee or demands a year commitment because there’s so many which does not.

4. Design Your Website - If you have no experience or limited experience designing a website you can choose from thousands of professionally designed templates for as low as $20. If you choose to customize the template yourself you will need web design software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver or Front Page. You will also need image software such as Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks. A new alternative web development software which is rapidly become the tool of choice for Internet Marketers is XSitePro. or go to scriptlance. and pick your price.


5. Upload Your Web Site files to your Hosting Service’s Server – Most Web creator software such as Front Page and Macromedia Dreamweaver has built in FTP (File Transfer Protocol) capability. A super program I recommend for uploading and downloading files is Cute FTP by GlobalScape. It’s especially handy for managing several sites.

6. Submit Your Website to the Search Engines - I recommend Submit-It http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.htmlwhich is a Free service that Submits your URL to all of the major Search Engines such as Yahoo, MSN & Google. Also, don't forget to make a sitemap and submit it to google. This makes it easier for google to index your web site pages therefore increasing your website's ranking. Just go to http://www.sitemapbuilder.net/ , type in your URL and their online sitemap program will create a sitemap for you which you can download and then upload to google.

Complete instructions are given on Sitemapbuilder website.7. SEO / Search Engine Optimization - This is the final step and an ongoing process to achieving success with your website. Search Engine Optimization involves having as many pages of articles and text as possible containing keywords phrases which describe what services or products you are offering in your website. You can get articles about almost any topic you can think of from many of the Ezine websites with reprint rights.

Articles written about your niche on your website vastly increases the value and ranking of your site to search engines because they reinforce your keyword word count.

Another very important step is to trade links with other sites and get as many inbound links as possible. Publishing your own articles to Ezine websites will help increase your inbound links.To learn more about SEO / Search Engine Optimization, just type in the search phrase "SEO" in your browser and you'll find numerous articles and info to help you with this process.

06 June 2006

Forum Secrets Part 2

Pay particular attention to the P.S. at the end...


Is anyone here experienced in putting together a really "tasty" resale rights package? I've been brainstorming all the different elements of what I want to include, and here's what I've come up with so far:

* resale rights to the eBooks (obviously)*

use of my professionally created sales letters (I paid a fortune to have these killer sales letters written... should I include them, or let people create their own?)*

I'll also give them my thank you pages, and download instructions email to make things easy for them.Here's my main question...I have a few other things that I can throw in, but I'm not sure if it would be too much.

The other possibilities are...

* the professional header graphic*

the complete set of eBook graphics*

and this is the one that I'm wrestling with...

should I offer ALL of them in a bundle package?

(meaning, they can buy all 10 products with resale rights for one low cost... or should I sell them individually?).Because these eBooks have sold a ton of copies, I don't want to devalue them by offering a ton of cheap, low level packages. I expect to charge around 150 dollars for the cheapest package, and even with that... if the person has a list, they could make their money back on the first day. Would it be a mistake to offer this as a bundle package, and give people all of these products that are already developed and ready-to-sell?

I'm ready to launch this offer, so I'd really appreciate hearing from some of the more experienced marketers on this forum.

Warmly,
Michael Rasmussen

P.S. - Here's the URL of the products that I'm offering the rights for. IF anyone here has an email list that would be interested in this kind of deal, I'm willing to give you 50% of what I make (50% of a high end sale like this is a pretty good chunk).




Do you see how I structured my post as a request for help?

What you may not realize is that what I was REALLY trying to do was get the attention of people who have good sized opt-in email lists, so they can promote my resale rights offer to their list.Pretty clever, huh?

Go ahead and give it a try. The Power P.S. technique is a proven winner. By the way, I received a lot of helpful replies to this original post, and as a result, I came up with a much more compelling resale rights offer. If you want to see it for yourself, go here, but make sure you keep reading...

Onward... it's time for the next technique of this series. This is a little known trick that experts use to make sure their posts get seen by nearly EVERYBODY. I call this one... The Slingshot Method Why do I call it The Slingshot Method? Well what happens when you pull a sling shot back further and further? Eventually it comes exploding back to where it was originally... almost instantly.When you think about that in terms of forum posts, that means that you take your post, and get it to come rocketing back to the top of the list of available posts to read.

Here's how to pull this off...Most forums are designed so that the newer posts are at the top of the list, and they get pushed down as more and more new posts get added. But guess what... it's not ONLY new posts that make it to the top. The ones who get replied to also get pushed to the top!Let me explain that in plain English.If you made a post last week about something, and nobody replied, it would keep going further and further down the list, until it made it to (gasp) page 2,which nobody looks at. Here's how to keep your post at the top of the list... simply REPLY TO IT.That's right, simply reply to your own post, and add some extra information that you "forgot" to put in your original post. Think about it, if there's a reply to your post every day for an entire week... your post will NOT get pushed to the bottom, and most of the "regulars" will get to read it.

I actually have a very powerful example of how to use the Slingshot Method. I used it to keep one of my own posts "stuck" at the top of the list for an entire MONTH! While everyone else was getting 2-300 people reading their post, I got nearly 2,500 views!

That post brought me a lot of traffic, and a lot of extra sales. The good news it that you can model my post to create your own traffic producing monster.Be sure to read the next part of this course, because I'm going to share with you this "Golden Post" that got the attention of thousands of Internet Marketers, and teach you how you can create one just like it for your business.



05 June 2006

Forum Secrets Part 1

The purpose of this mini-course is to give you some fantastic tips, tricks & secrets that will make your forum posts MUCH more powerful (and make you a lot more money).Since you'll be posting ANYWAY, let's learn how to craft your posts so that they get some serious results!


The second thing I wanted to mention is that there's a hidden danger lurking in forums. Most new marketers aren't aware of it, and yet I've seen it choke the life out of new websites, products & great ideas.What is this hidden danger? It's simply a LACK OF DISCRETION when choosing WHO you allow to influence your advertising efforts. In otherwords, a lot of new marketers will see someone making a certain kind of post on the forums, and they'll immediately go and copy what that person is doing... without even knowing if it's effective or not. Listen, just because something looks or sounds good, doesn't mean it makes money. If you're going to choose a forum posting style to emulate, then make sure that the person you're learning from is actually making money on the internet.


That's where I come in. I'm one of the few people in the online marketing community that consistently earns over ten thousand dollars per month in spendable cash. I have a lot to share with you, so I hope that this will only be the beginning of our relationship. Okay, now I've got a great forum posting technique for you...



The Power P.S. Technique



Have you noticed that you barely even SEE banner ads these days? Even if a site has a well placed banner ad, your eyes are trained to ignore it, because you've seen so many of them, and you know that they're generally not worth looking at.Well guess what, the same thing is happening on discussion forums!

More and more people are completely ignoring the signatures at the bottom of each post. Although some people ARE making money with their signatures, I've discovered a much more powerfulway to get people to click on your link.


It's called the Power P.S. Here's how it works...


At the bottom of your posts, you add a littleP.S. that increases the URGENCY of your message.That way, people click your link immediately,instead of ignoring it.The P.S. cannot be a "canned" message that youslip into every post. It should be different eachtime, so that people don't get trained to ignore your PS's.

Look out for part 2 of this mini-course tomorrow, because I'm going to give you a powerful REAL LIFE example of one of my most successful PS's o fall time, and then I'll reveal how you can"ethically steal" my secret to make drive tons oftraffic to YOUR web site.

10 Extreme Ways To Rocket Your Profits

1. Advertise your web site with banner ads that areanimated and include a call to action. You must grabpeople's attention and make them to click.

2. Use pop up windows or advertisements on yourweb site. They grab your visitors attention becausethey jump right out at them.

3. Buy internet business books, ebooks, private sitememberships, etc. Study and learn all the new website promotional ideas you can.

4. Analyze all your promotional efforts. Concentrateon the ones that work and drop the ones that don'twork. Don't waste your valuable time.

5. Get the most from each one of your visitors. Askthem to subscribe to your e-zine, participate on yourmessage board, bookmark your site, etc.

6. Use text links if your banner ads are not pullingtraffic. People don't ignore text links as much asthey do banner ads.

7. Trade content with other ezine publishers or websites. This is a powerful and effective way to placeyour links on other targeted web sites.

8. Keep your product available to your customersat all times. If you have to backorder it, they mayend up canceling their order.

9. Use content on your web site so people can skimthrough it easily. Most people have little time so tryusing lists, short tips, short articles,etc

10. Add a message board or chat room to your website. If people enjoy it, they will revisit your web siteto participate regularly.

25 May 2006

Top 10 directories to submit your website to

Adding your new site to the major directories is a key task if you want to build traffic and page ranking. While the list below is not exhaustive, it will get you well underway in your directory listings.


A few points to keep in mind as you add your site to these directories:


Directories are not search engines.

Directories are edited and managed by human beings, whereas search engines are programs that troll the web looking for pages. Your site might be recommended to a directory by one of the site editors, or a very enthusiastic fan of your site, but most likely you will have to introduce yourself if you want to make a directory’s list.
Be sure the directory is indexed in the major search engines. A quick search at Google, Yahoo & MSN will do.

Be sure the directory is not banned by Google. You probably won’t get flagged by Google if you are listed there, but the risk is too great – there are hundreds of other places for your link.

Page Rank isn’t everything.

Don’t skip sites just because they have a low page rank. While Page Rank is extremely helpful, it changes over time. A directory with a PR of 3 this month could jump to 6 next month. Also, take note of the Page Rank of the specific page of the directory your site will be listed on. Just like it says, Page Rank is for pages, not for sites. A directory could have a PR of 7, but the page your link appears on might be a humble one.

Directories are not overnight traffic.

Look around the submission guidelines and to see how long the editors will take to review your site. Free sites can take up to four months to get approved.

Go after the older directories first. Google values a site’s age, and you should to.
Review the directory’s guidelines and don’t abuse them. Don’t submit your site every week. Don’t add an unrelated site to a niche directory. Don’t try to trick the editors into adding your site to more than one category if that goes against the guidelines.



Now that you know the basics of evaluating and submitting to directories, here’s a short list of the top sites:

General directories:

Yahoo http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request The world’s best-known directory. This free listing form may take months to result in a link back to your site, but it is well worth a try.

DMOZ http://www.dmoz.org/ This is the granddaddy of all directories, and is greatly respected by Google and the other major search engines. Listings are free, but the wait can be long. According to the DMOZ site, expect your site to appear in the listings at Google, AOL and other major engines about 2 weeks after you’re listed in DMOZ.

Zeal http://www.zeal.com/A free listing after you register. Zeal is owned by Looksmart.

Best of the Web http://www.botw.org/Requires a $49.95 yearly fee, or a $149.95 one-time fee. Online since 1994. Listing pages usually have a page rank of 4.

Directory World http://www.directoryworld.net/Requires a reciprocal link, but is otherwise free. Good page ranks for listing pages.

Clickey http://www.clickey.com/A free link. Also sorts companies by country.

Seoma http://www.seoma.net/Requires registration and a $15 paypal fee for a link, but the high page ranks make it a bargain (compared to buying a text link).

ExactSeek http://www.exactseek.com/A free link at an established site. You can also upgrade to a “top ten ranking” for $12.

What You Seek http://www.whatyouseek.com/Standard submissions cost $24.99 and will be posted in eight weeks. Velocity submit takes two days and costs $49.99.

Really First http://www.reallyfirst.com/One of the largest directories with over 40,000 links. Poor navigation, but a free link if you add their link to your site.


This not an exhaustive list, but a great start. Also, remember, if you have a new site, getting listed here will help your website get indexed by search engines.

23 May 2006

SEO - Selecting A Domain Name

Selecting a good domain name is the key factor for attaining a better page ranking. The most commonly used aspect while choosing a domain name is the usage of keyword in the URL. You can take the idea of selecting a domain name that has low competition but with good demand can ultimately help in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

There are many factors to keep in mind while naming your domain. A good domain name should be short and easy to spell by the users. By avoiding long domain name will help the searchers to find your website and also to remember the name much easily. The keyword used in your domain name can be descriptive to help the internet users to memorize.

Make sure to include the domain name that is unique and at the same time keyword rich. Usage of more keywords in your domain name will help in a better ranking which in turn may also help the searchers to find your website. The use of more than two keywords can bring a negative impact, as it can make the domain name lengthier and the chance of misspelling is more. So it better to use a maximum of two keywords. Another drawback is that it can also make your email address long. So it is recommended the use of shorter and catchy domain names.

Among a large number of steps while choosing a domain name, the most important and foremost one is whether you are choosing a free or paid domain. In all these, give consideration to the customer so that your potential users can find your website.


Another important factor to be remembered in domain naming is the use of hyphens (-). If you are using two or more keywords, without separators, as your domain name it can be interesting, but at the same time the search engine may consider it as a single keyword. In this case, it is advised to use hyphen to separate the keywords. But for internet users the domain name without hyphen will be easier to remember and the one with hyphens tend to bring confusion for the users. A main solution for this issue is that you may use hyphened domain name during the registration with a search engine and for online advertising. At the same time go for a domain name which uses no hyphen, so that it may help the people who prefer just keywords during the searching.

Taking these tips into consideration will help you in selecting an excellent domain name for your website. You can register multiple variants for your website at the price of a single domain name. Also, make sure to avoid the use of numbers in your domain name as it may prevent confusion. In place of keywords you can also use some unique brand names for your website
Selecting a good business and domain name can draw a good traffic, and makes the entire process of optimization much easier. All you require is a shorter and unique web address that can bring your website among the top listing.

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