Membership Sites Today

By Kim and Charles Petty

The topics for successful member only websites are as varied today as...short people, tall people, buying websites, unusual business ideas, selling stocks, paint ball, 2nd wives clubs, financial, dating, fitness, marketing and countless mentoring and coaching sites on almost every topic imaginable and probably a few you can't imagine or wouldn't want to imagine.

It takes some work and certainly the right tools to set up a members-only website but the rewards (monetary as well as personal satisfaction) can be huge. Whatever you are passionately interested in or very adept at can be the topic of a members-only website today.

One of the first types of membership sties on the Internet was the online dating site. In the beginning, they were mostly populated with nerds, weirdoes and perverts but as the Internet matured the sites became popular among people from all walks of life. They have even progressed so far as to offer pre-screening of members. Most porn sites are membership only sites.

There are membership sites today that cover just about every area of human interests. Some offer informational or teaching material that is only able to be accessed by site members. Some membership sites are able to be viewed by non members but non-members are not allowed to participate in the activities or post to the message boards on the site. Sites that provide information to find work-at-home jobs, for example, can see the listing of jobs but cannot apply for the jobs unless they are members of the membership site.

There are membership sites that provide instruction is such things as how to play a guitar. The lessons are accessible only to members of the site, although those who are not members can view what subjects are being taught in the lessons.

Membership sites usually accept payment for membership fees by credit card or by personal check.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experts in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory

The Importance of an Affiliate Program to Membership Sites

By Kim and Charles Petty

Affiliate programs are important to membership sites for a number of good reasons. An affiliate program isn't really a program. It's a business arrangement. Affiliate programs are also known as associate programs, associates programs, referral programs and even bounty programs. Most affiliate programs are free to join. Affiliate programs are a way to earn money without producing your own product.

Affiliate programs allow a membership website to generate additional (other than the membership subscription) income by advertising products that are relevant to the site's theme. For example, let's say you own a membership website whose theme is golf. You would recommend products that you like yourself like golf books, magazines, videos and golfing gear. When you have an affiliate agreement with the merchants selling those products, they provide you with affiliate links which you paste into your site. Then when members click on those links and buy those products, you earn a commission. Affiliates programs can earn commissions in three ways: per click, per sale and per lead.

The members on a membership website are helped by the affiliate programs as well. They are given easy access to products that they would otherwise have to search the internet to find.

On the other side of the aisle, you can let other companies post your ad on their sites and pay commissions for sales of your product or memberships. Sure, you may give away 10 percent of your profit to an affiliate; but 90 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing. You'll make up in sales quantity what you may lose in percentage of your own net. It's quite worthwhile in the long run.

Use your e-zine to advertise your affiliate program. Always encourage your newsletter subscribers to forward the newsletter to a friend.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to schedule strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

Starting a Paid Membership Site

By Kim and Charles Petty

Whatever you call them - member only, membership, subscription, or mentor websites, they all have one thing in common. They are bringing in steady and constant cash flow for their owners, month after month, from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. The array of the topics of these websites is endless.

Some of these paid membership sites provide mentoring or coaching, others publish useful articles or information in a particular field or product. Still others publish the results of tests and studies or product reviews. Some membership sites provide specialized service or act as a meeting place for people with a common interest and then there are those that provide step-by-step instructions for such things as painting or music.

All these sites have one thing in common: to access the website (or the best information on the site) you have to pay for it! Which begs the questionwhy would anybody pay for information on the Internet?

The answer is simple. People buy information that they could probably find for themselves if they looked long enough and hard enough, because they want to save time or because they think the information will be better or more specialized or because the information just isn't available to them unless they pay for it.

Just a few short years ago it was almost unheard of to charge for access to a website and almost no one was doing it. Today, however, it is the norm and not the exception. Actually we have Internet dating sites to thank for this huge money making opportunity.

The Internet dating industry began with free membership sites that were mostly populated by nerds, weirdoes and perverts. It was quickly discovered that ordinary people would gladly pay to have access to lists where the posters had been screened even just a little. Now people actually expect to pay for access to valuable information.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to schedule strategy meeting on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228

Being Professional with Help Desk Systems and Forums

By Kim and Charles Petty

You need to automate everything if you want to be successful in measuring customer satisfaction. Surveying your customers is a great way of measuring customer satisfaction but if they take too much time away from other important work, it will fall by the wayside. Automate both your requests for completing the survey and your collection and reporting of the data. Some help desk management software will do this for you. If yours does not, consider customization that will enable it -- it's worth the investment.

One of the best ways to find out how effective your customers think your help desk or forum is, is to take a survey.... ask the people who actually use the help desk or forum what they think about it. Asking for suggestions to improve your help desk or forum is a good idea. There are many approaches to surveying, but some are more effective than others.

Often times membership websites will send a customer satisfaction survey of their help desk or forum to their entire list. There are several problems with this approach. First not everyone surveyed will have used your help desk's services. This will either make your percentage of responses low or add irrelevant responses to your data. Since you only request this information once in a while, you will be tempted to cram too much information into the survey. Often these surveys lack focus and do not give you a clear picture of performance.

A better approach to help desk or forum customer satisfaction measurement is case-by-case surveying. Each time a case is closed, meaning the problem was resolved and the resolution was already communicated to the requester, a short survey on the case is sent to the requester.

This is great information for continuous improvement and you can review the comments provided by your customers.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experts in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to schedule strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & overseas go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228

The Main Focus of Your Membership Site

By Kim and Charles Petty

Whatever the theme of your membership website is, it should always be your main focus. Every piece of written content, audio content or video content should be about the main theme of your membership website. Little side trips into very closely related fields is alright but even very closely related subjects should never detract from the main focus of your site.

When you chose the theme for your membership website, you chose it because it was something that you knew a lot about and/or were (and hopefully still are) passionate about.

I saw a sign in a convenience store not long ago that said something like.we strive to always be kind, considerate and helpful. However, it is hard to remember that the main objective is to drain the swamp when you are up to your ears (cleaned up) in alligators. That is true for owners of membership websites. It really is hard to stay focused on your objectives when you have so many things to distract you from doing what you need to do to keep your website focused on the main theme.

No matter how many distractions you have, you must still keep new, fresh, relevant and timely content on your website that pertains to the theme of your site.

Your ezines and newsletters need to be filled with helpful and useful information. Be sure to continually check for new products that would be helpful to your membership. New products come out daily and you don't want to fall behind.

You need to make full use of your autoresponder to keep your members informed and to keep them focused on the objective, as well.

Your blog, forum or message board topics can become unfocused and off-topic very easily. They must be monitored dailymaybe even several times each day.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experts in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy meeting on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & overseas go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228

Do I Have Options in Pay-Per-Click Programming Besides Google's?

By Kirt Christensen

PPC advertisement has opened the door to a new era in internet marketing. The search engines have come up with a way to make money from internet marketing. What are the effects of that?

Let's look at advertising from days gone by. No matter the medium for your advertising, TV, radio, newsprint, or web-page, you would be charged a fee. And for your fee you'd get you ads shown for a particular time period and they could be seen by any, and everybody.

Then someone started thinking that this type of system wasn't really fair on the internet; after all, not all advertising venues are created equal. If an ad received a great deal of exposure due to the fact that the website it was posted on brought in a larger number of visitors every day, shouldn't both parties profit from it?

Raising the fee for advertising wouldn't really work either, because if extra business didn't continue, that might hurt the sites reputation.

Therefore, we have the beginnings of pay-per-click advertising.

Advertisers write ad copy for a product or service and use keywords they selected and analyzed with care to see if they would be profitable. Then their ads are given to the search engines to display.

Every time that a web browser does a search for that specific keyword, the advertisement will be displayed. Every time the advertisement was chosen and an internet browser made the long trip from advertisement to web page the search engine would receive a fee, generally less than a dollar, and both parties would benefit from the deal.

Search engines even carried the process so far as to allow those who were willing to pay a larger amount of money per click for their advertisement (those who "bid" the most on a specific keyword) would have their advertisement placed at the head of the pecking order so that it would be able to receive the greatest visibility and generate more traffic, thereby resulting in both parties turning a greater profit.

If you ask anyone to identify a pay per click "ppc" advertising tool they are probably going to immediately fall back on Google and Google AdWords; however, Google is far from the only search engine to operate a pay per click marketing tool.

Yahoo!, ABC Search, Search Feed, 7 Search, MIVA, Findology, Microsoft AdCenter and Ask.com, are less well known search engines that have ppc advertising services. With these alternatives to Google Adwords, marketers can test their advertising mettle and reap the profits found them.

About the Author:

Need to optimize or "fix" your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords ppc management, he's the man!

Search Engine Marketing - Create Better Landing Pages

By Terry Stanfield

Landing pages have the ability to grab and hold us like fly no-fly paper or repel us like jumping on the trampling. The question is what impact does your landing page have on the people who visit your website. As I talk to people who are just getting into SEO (search engine optimization), all they focus on our rankings in traffic. We have to remember that "rankings" in "traffic" or not the end but a means to the end. That end is visitors to your site that take advantage of the solutions that you offer. We can have a lot of traffic to our website but if no one is sticking around long enough to see if our solutions can solve their problems then that traffic does not mean anything.

A lot of thought must go into your landing pages, both from a search engine perspective and from a customer perspective.

Search Engine perspective:

This is covered in Search Engines 101 Paid Vs Natural Search so I am not going to go into detail here.

Customer Focused Landing Pages:

Your landing page has to do one thing, answer the questions that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his keywords. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution or is in some kind of "pain". You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. The last thing a searcher wants to see is that you can jump higher, run faster and do it better than the competition. He just doesn't care (yet). Besides, most of the websites that he already visited probably stated that they do that. The challenge is to show the searcher that you have the answers to his needs. How do we do that?

1. Think of as many questions as you can that might be on the mind of a visitor to that specific landing page.

2. Choose one of the questions to be the title of that specific landing page. Use the other questions as sub points or topics in the outline of the page.

3. The content underneath each heading will be a description of the problem. It is very important that when you describe the problem you do it from your client's perspective.

4. After describing two or three scenarios that your client may fall into closeout with the paragraph that describes your qualifications for dealing with the above scenarios. This is where you put in how me years of experience, the combined experience of your team or your experience in the marketplace.

5. The last thing is to have a call to action. The idea is that if your client falls into one of the scenarios described it would be natural for them to do the call for action to get help with their problem.

For example, if someone is doing a search on long-term care insurance they may only have a general idea of what you're looking for. When they come to a landing page that has a question like "what happens to your nest egg if you suffer an illness or an injury that requires long-term care?" Then in the description of the problem they read that one year of long-term care can cost between $90,000 and $130,000 and as a result of this high costs it will either force you into bankruptcy or dependency on your children or family to take care of you. (Not a pretty picture.) After you add your qualifications, whatever they are, you put in your call to action. It could be something like "for a free quote and help in understanding what your options are fill out form below and one of our experts will contact you within the next 48 hours".

So the question remains, are your landing pages flypaper or trampolines? Customer focused landing pages are worth the time and energy to produce. If you are not sure give us a call and we will do a free evaluation of your site. This will help determine whether or not changes or in order.

About the Author:

Before you start an SEO project, go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and more Search Engine Marketing articles.

Seven Business Names: Ideas To Never Rename Your Business

By Linda P. Morton

Good business name ideas help you to create names that will serve your business well for a lifetime.

Seven business names ideas that will help you create a name that will last the lifetime of your business include:

Business Names: Idea 1 - Think of as many name options as possible.

Business Names: Idea 2 - Select a name that matches your business.

Business Names: Idea 3 - Choose a name that leaves room for expanding into new products and services.

Business Names: Idea 4 - Be certain that the name relates positively to your target market.

Business Names: Idea 5 - Conduct trademark research.

Business Names: Idea 6 - Research your target market.

Business Names: Idea 7 - Learn the connotations and hear the sounds of each name.

Business Names: Idea 1 - Think Of As Many Name Options As Possible

Start with lots of business names. Ideas will be eliminated as you process through to determining the best one. So make a long list of name options. Ten options will do, but more are better.

Business Names: Idea 2 - Choose A Name That Reflects Your Business

If you are fortunate enough that your name reflects your business well, or if you have name recognition, you can label your business with your name. Otherwise don't do it.

If your last name is "Small" and you specialize in renting small equipment, then you can use "Small Equipment Rental." However, if you want to also rent large equipment, it will limit you.

Business Names: Idea 3 - Choose A Name That Enables Your Business To Grow In Different Directions.

Just because you start your business with a specific product doesn't mean that you won't expand into different product lines. Your name should be broad enough to cover your business as it grows.

I learned this the hard way and had to rename my business within its first five years. I originally named it Sulton Books. "Sulton" didn't add any value or positive image to the business, and "Books" kept me from expanding into other information products.

I ended up having to rename my business, partially because of the terrorist attacks in Sept. 2001. I needed to rid my business of the negative connotation of "Sulton." I took that opportunity to select a name, "Best Books Plus" that enhanced the business with a more positive connotation and a greater ability for expansion.

Business Names: Idea 4 - Choose A Name That Makes A Positive Impression On Your Business' Target Market

Consider how each business name idea will impress target market members. This requires knowing as much as possible about your target market members so you can select a final name that they will like.

Still don't select a name that is so specific to your target market that you can't expand into new markets later. You don't want to have to rename your business in order to expand it in anyway.

Business Names: Idea 5 - Assure That Name Options Are Available

It's vital to determine that none of your name options are already being used by other businesses.

You can search for trademarks that use any of you name options at the United States Patent and Trademark Office site. Eliminate all options that are a part of a trademark name to assure that you don't get sued and have to change your name later.

Business Names: Idea 6 - Research Your Target Market

It's time to try your name options on members of your target market. Get as many as you can to tell you which name options they like best and what comes to mind with each option.

While you're at it, show them your product and get their reactions to it. Sometimes their reactions will provide new name ideas.

Business Names: Idea 7 - Learn The Connotations And Hear The Sounds Of Each Name

A good business name will create a positive image of your business. It also sounds good.

To create a positive image, you must know how the words in each name option express different meanings across cultures.

You don't want to make the mistake of a major American car company who named a model "Nova". When they attempted to sell it overseas, they learned that the name there meant "No Go". Obviously they didn't sell many there.

In Conclusion

If you follow the advice under each of seven business name ideas, you'll select a name that will last a lifetime.

About the Author:

Get more information about Target Markets and learn what best appeals to yours at Target Markets. You can also get completed Target Market Profiles. Linda P. Morton writes on many marketing topics. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

Search Engine Marketing: What SEO services do I need

By Terry Stanfield

Are you confused by all the talk about SEO services and how you need to make your website search engine optimized in order to increase the amount of web traffic that your web site gets? It can be confusing at first to know what SEO services are all about and what SEO services you need to implement some search engine marketing into your website and to increase your ranking on the search engine results pages. If you have never worked with a consultant before you'll find that working with a qualified consultant is the best way to make sure your website is 100% search engine optimized.

SEO services are more than just writing search engine optimized content. An experienced consultant can change your website and increase your web site hits almost over night. SEO services range in price but how can you put a price on success? You should be willing to pay for experience when you're hiring a consultant because the right services can make your business successful or take an already successful business to the next level. If you don't know what SEO services you need the best thing to do is to have a consultation with an SEO expert. Show them your website and ask for a written proposal documenting all the services that you need to increase the traffic to your website and to make sure that your site ranks higher in the search engine results pages. Be willing to pay the SEO consultant for the consultation but many will offer new clients a free consultation so you might not need to pay anything. Once you have a better idea of what services you need you can plan a budget for the project of overhauling your website and making it more search engine optimized.

Not sure that you need any SEO services? Well search engine optimization and search engine marketing are more than just buzzwords. These days the Internet is overflowing with millions of websites and blogs. The only way to make sure that your site gets noticed and gets traffic is to use search engine optimization and search engine marketing. If the cost of SEO services or hiring an SEO consultant seems high think of the cost in terms of advertising. Every business needs to advertise. Would you rather spend your advertising budget on proven SEO methods that are almost sure to drive more traffic to your site and to reach your target market or would your rather spend your advertising budget on an a blanket internet ad campaign that might not bring in any web traffic at all? Spending the money to hire an experienced SEO consultant to provide SEO services is well worth the cost. Your website will only be successful if you are bringing in daily web traffic and getting an SEO overhaul for your web site is the best way to bring in that traffic. When you see your daily website traffic double or even triple after hiring an SEO consultant you'll be glad you spent the extra money.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info on Search Engine Optimization.

Picking Great Keywords

By Kirt Christensen

For all the marketers who are using Google AdWords to sell their products/services the idea of keywords is hallowed. They are the thing that can either make or break their business. It hinges on their ability to bring in business.

If your adwords campaign is not successful, you will be wasting hundreds of dollars on ads that failed to bring in anything but idle clickers, people just looking around at everything.

What isn't known by this group of people is that luck doesn't come into play and careful research doesn't guarantee success also.

Of course taking a look at the database of a search engine will reveal the keywords that attracted the most business in a given time period; but the keywords are going to produce tons of results pages because they are popular. Internet searchers aren't going to look past 5 or 10 pages. So anything beyond that point is not going to be seen.

It is evident that an ad must be among the first pages to be assured of some kind of success. What does that have to do with keywords? To be assured of their ads showing up on the first 5 or 10 pages, those very prime spots, a marketer will have to have one of the higher bids on that keyword.

Of course that indicates that a higher price will be required for each click on the ads if we want to stay on the first pages and not end up on the other ninety nine.

Well who cares if you have to pay a little more per click? You should because every time that that ad is clicked on you have to pay that amount even if you aren't getting any sales off of it and that could mean a very large deficit in the ad budget. That's why each ad has to function at peak performance so that you can justify the expense.

If you want your ads to be successful than the keywords need to be successful also.

A good keyword will be one which will be specific enough that it narrows down the viewing pool (for example, "indoor swimming pools" rather than "swimming pools") but still general enough that browsers will think to enter it into their search engine (honestly, unless they are professionals themselves they will not know to select a Culligan swimming pool).

If you are having trouble choosing your keywords for your ads, go and visit some of the terrific tools that Google makes available for the adwords customers. www.adwords.google.com.

About the Author:

Need to optimize or "fix" your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords pay per click, he's the man!

What you Still need to know about Search Engine Submission

By Terry Stanfield

In part one we discussed the need to have your site indexed by the major search engines and ordered to be found in the search results. In this article we're going to discuss three ways to have your site indexed, get into the search engines database that are safe and will not get you banned by the search engines.

Have another website (that is already indexed) link to your site

Once a site is indexed or put into the search engines database, the search engine spiders go out to those pages anywhere for once a month to several times a day. You could get a one way link back to your website from a site that is already indexed the search engines will follow that link back to your site and index it. The challenge care is to put your link on the site that is related to what you do. Ideally, the link back to your site is on a site that is already considered an authority in your field. It is not a good idea for a plumber to swap links with a web designer. Speaking of swapping links, try and stay away from reciprocal linking and buying text link ads, more about that at a later date.

Publish an article or press release that has a link to your site

This practice has several great advantages. One is that a lot of those sites that allow you to publish your articles are free and are indexed constantly because the sites are constantly being updated with new content. Watch your article is submitted to one of the sites it may take up to two weeks to go through their editorial process and the review. When sure article is approved, your site can be indexed within a couple of days.

Sign up for paid search with each of the search engines

This is by far the fastest way to get your site indexed. When you signed up for an Adwords account in Google your website will be indexed immediately. It cost very little to set up an account. You can put in just a couple of keywords that you won a bid on and did very little so that your ad does not show up on the first few pages.

A great strategy for getting your website indexed and building links to your page

I would do a combination of first setting up a paid search account with at least the top three search engines Google, yahoo and MSN. Then I would start writing articles 500 to 600 words and start getting them published on as many publishing websites that you can.

Search engine submissions are very important but if done incorrectly can get you banned from the very search engines are trying to get into.

About the Author:

Before you start an SEO project, go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and how toincrease web site traffic.

How To Market Your Home Based Business Online

By Stephen Meyer

In order to build your home based business you will need to market it both online and offline. Here I will discuss marketing it online and what can produce the greatest benefit with the least cost. While there are many ways to promote your home based business through free advertising not all of those ways will be productive. Sometimes what looks to be the most productive way is actually the least productive?

Free For All Sites

Free For All sites known as FFA sites can appear to be very productive. Most have extremely large user bases, often with millions of members. Nothing sounds better than advertising your Home based business to 1 million people and more for free. It is simple to submit to these sites.

The advertising control panel will have a series of boxes. You will input your name, email address, Ad title, ad text and URL you are promoting. Remember to use another email address other than your main email client because you will get hundreds and often thousands of advertisements sent you by site members. The ad submission form will limit the number of words you can use so give it some thought before submitting.

When I first started advertising online I used FFA sites very often. I was excited over sending my advertisement to 10 million people or more. After a short time I realized it wasn't benefitting me at all. When I received hundreds of emails through my alternate email server I never read them. I deleted them as quickly as possible. I realized the other members were simply doing the same thing and the effort was nearly pointless.

Free Traffic Exchanges

Traffic Exchanges offer the member a way to advertise for free to hundreds of people. They can be enjoyable to use because of the way they are setup. You must surf for advertising credits and each site is on a timer. You can't go to the next site until the time is up or risk not gaining any credits. Many advertisements I've seen are nearly pointless because the advertiser has sent the visitors to a long sales page or a web site filled with to much information. Because the visitor is doing exactly what you are doing, surfing for credits they will not be on your page very long. They key to using these sites is first to have an attention grabbing headline and then the use of a Lead capture Page. The page has to have one focus, to gain the persons email address and name. Sell them on your idea as briefly as possible so that you can use your email program to actually sell the product. These pages are fun too use but there are more productive ways to spend your time.

Using Articles For Site Promotion

Article marketing is by far the number one way to promote your home based business. The good part is it can be done for free. Many people believe you must have a lot of skills to affectively write an article but that couldn't further from the truth. It simply involves having knowledge about the subject you are writing about. If you can talk about a subject with your family and friends or can write an email you can also write an article. The benefits of Article writing are very long lasting. It's common for website publishers to add articles to their web sites that were written many years earlier if the information is still applicable as it often is.

When you are finished writing your article you simply submit it to Article Directories who then publish it on their site and offer it to their members to use. This can be thousands of site publishers and if you have used Keywords in your article it will be found by those publishers whose site relate to those words. It is true Viral marketing because your article can be found on may sites and used by publishers. It takes a little time, often a month and longer, but one article can provide hundreds of backlinks pointing to your site. These links are more valuable than all the site optimization you could do.

About the Author:

Stephen Meyer is a Home based Business who is poudly helping others build their own profitable personal home based business. Visit his web page and choose your own profitable business Home Based Business Opportunities

Looking For A Web Host? Here's What To Look For.

By Lucas Heijn

Choosing the right web host is a little like choosing the right shop for your business. In saying this I don't mean location but size and facilities. We will discuss location in another article.

If you're are planning to start a business or have a business going and plan to move to new premises you would spend some time in looking at what is available, and what is suitable. You need to do the same in choosing a web host. There are certain things you need to make sure you have.

How much disk space do you need on the server?

How much space (disk space) do you need? Here it is sensible to get whatever you can afford. Most websites will run on just a few MB. You need to find out if you can upgrade without difficulty. Here is one instance where 500 MB may not be enough. If you are going to set up a site with lots of downloadable software you will need to have plenty of disk space.

What is Meant By Bandwidth?

Basically it is the uploading and downloading from your site. Each time a visitor comes to your site, their computer requests the information your site contains. Your site now appears on the visitors computer. This information has appeared on your visitors computer because their computer has downloaded the information. This downloading is measured and is called bandwidth. The more bandwidth you have the more visitors you can have without having to pay extra. You should always be able to upgrade to a larger package and get more. Some companies also offer unlimited accounts.

Do You Need Databases?

The short answer is yes. In fact you will need to make sure that you can run a number of databases. There are many web applications that require a database to run. Let's say you want to have a Blog on your site. You could download the free script from Wordpress. To install it you need a database. There are so many applications that require databases that you should consider at least getting 5 or 6 available as a minimum.

Control Panel. Which Is Best?

There are a number of different ones used by hosting companies. There are two that stand out for ease of use. You need to be able to easily understand how to use them. The two I like best are Direct Admin and cPanel. Both are excellent. Many webmasters swear by cPanel. I personally like Direct Admin better, I feel it is the easiest to use. The control panel is where you work behind your site. Here you can set up email accounts, new databases and much much more.

Some Other Things You Should Expect

There are added extras that you should be expecting from your hosting provider. a vital one is a site creator. Does the hosting account come with a simple to use site builder? One of the easiest to use in the business is the Drag And Drop site creator. This is a very powerful creator being able to generate vibrant PHP sites.

Several hosts also supply a members area with marketing information and free of charge downloads. Many of these downloadable products can be useful in setting up your new site.

Location is everything. At the start of this article I mentioned location. Your web host is not responsible here. Location is completely up to you. You create the location by SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are many things you can and need to do to increase the traffic to your site. This is another subject we will deal with at a later date.

About the Author:

Lucas Heijn is CEO of LinksParadise a hosting company. LinksParadise specialize in hosting for home business. They supply a package that has been expressly designed with business people in mind. They have a number of hosting packages to meet your requirements. www.my-web-host.com

Does Your Passion and Hobby Really Matter?

By Kim and Charles Petty

Does your passion or your hobby matter? Well, it most certainly matters to you and unless you have a passion or hobby that nobody else in the world has ever heard of, there are probably plenty of other people who share your passion or hobby and may even more into it than you are.

Being deeply involved in a hobby or passion is the stuff that successful niche marketing is made of. Most really successful niche marketers have turned what the care about the most into successful businesses. The reason for their success is their passion about the theme of their websites.

Creating a successful niche marketing site takes a lot of time and a lot more dedication. Unless you are passionate about the subject, it is hard to stay focused on it long enough to make it a success. So passion and dedication are your two biggest assets. You must be willing to put in long hours and be willing to accept the fact that it will be quite some time before you start realizing a profiteven a modest one. Keeping on keeping on is the only way you will ever be successful at niche marketing.

You can establish a money-making niche marketing website with the theme about the very things that you love the most. If you can correctly define your niche, make certain that people are willing to pay for the product or service that you are selling, and locate that specific audience; there is no reason why you can't build a niche marketing site that is all about your greatest passion or the hobby that you most enjoy. Imagine that! Being able to make money and do what you love doing at the same time. It doesn't get any better than that!

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experts in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to schedule strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228

Effective Ways To Market Your Tanning Salon

By Betty P Davis

Think of some original marketing ploys to encourage customers to tan at your business. There is already a market for this type of service so you just need to reach out there and grab it. Make sure customers know exactly what you have to offer so they can decide it is the right facility for them. Simply advertising your business isn't enough due to the amount of competition that is out there.

If you have a great deal of activity going on in your tanning salon you may feel like it is too difficult to get it all detailed in one message. That is very true so you will just need to take a new approach. Come up with some specific ads about various aspects of your tanning salon. You can use different ones in various types of advertising locations. You can change the ad in the newspaper weekly as well to keep attracting new customers who are looking for something specific.

You are likely very proud of your tanning salon so make sure that is reflected in your advertising. Tell them what you have as far as how many tanning areas and what types they are. Let them know you offer a full line of quality tanning products that they can offer. Also let them know that you offer eye protection and very clean tanning areas. All of these things are great angles for marketing your tanning salon.

It is important that your tanning salon offers them the convenience that they are looking for. One way you can do this is by offering extended hours during the busy times of the year. Not everyone can get into a tanning salon between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm. You will be losing a great deal of customers if you don't open your doors sooner and stay open later than that.

You will definitely find that there are customers who enjoy tanning before they go in to work each morning. Some of them many work all night so they stop in to tan before they go home to sleep. Others want to be able to come in on their lunch hour or right after work. It is a great way to transition from work mode to family mode. Market these hours so that they will know you are looking out for their needs.

This type of extending hours of service will also help to cut down too many people trying to get an appointment at the same time. If you offer early morning tanning sessions as well as evening ones, not everyone will have to try to get in on their lunch hour. Overall this is going to make the process go much smoother for you, the staff, and of course your valued customers.

Never forget to encourage your previous customers to come back in either. Don't assume that they will just automatically come in and start tanning again in the spring. You don't want them to feel they can't find time for it. You also don't want them to look into going to another tanning salon. Send them out something in the mail to remind them of what you have. To show your appreciation to them you can also offer a discounted price on tanning services and products.

You may feel that you are advertising for your tanning salon so all is well. Yet you need to really stop to evaluate if the way in which you market it is effective or not. You definitely want to do all you can to retain previous customers. You also want to work to encourage first time customers to become regular faces you see around your tanning salon.

About the Author:

Betty P Davis writes about the ins and outs of the tanning salon indusrty. You can avoid the rookie mistakes many new operators make when they open up a tanning salon

Google AdwordsHuh?

By Kirt Christensen

Through the past ten years the internet has become the center of business that the world revolves around. If the internet weren't up and running come Monday morning when the stock market opened there would be hundreds of thousands of crippled businesses.

Out there in the world wide web there exists a creature of opportunity, a man or woman keeping their eyes on the happenings and trends going on around them and waiting for the opportunity to make a profit.

The answer to that lies in the fine art of internet marketing. In years past the ability to turn a profit has been dependent upon the ability to reach beyond the periphery of a location. While television and newspapers allowed the businessman or woman to reach a large number of consumers it was still severely hampered by the fact that televisions will only broadcast so far-and most newsboys are not willing to bike across the Atlantic.

The internet changed all of this. Suddenly,

Businessmen could send information to their colleagues across the globe in a matter of minutes.

Consumers could shop hundreds of thousands of stores in the blink of an eye simply by entering a few words into an internet search engine.

Marketers could reach a consumer market previously closed to them simply by creating a website and then doing as much advertising as possible.

Out of respect to this internet marketing trend Google came up with Adwords. Adwords is a way for marketers to build advertisements that would revolve around a certain number of keywords related to their product or service that would get the attention of search engines when consumers came along looking for what you have to offer. Your ads would be shown when consumers search using your keywords and that increases the chance of your ads being seen greatly.

It can be tricky to register a Google Adwords account. If a marketer is smart he'll be anxious to make several ads to show off their product.

In order to prevent advertising dollars from being wasted it is essential that the profit brought in by each ad be able to be measured. Although this step is a vital part of any internet marketing campaign it is particularly important because Google AdWords operates on a pay per click basis.

This boils down to Google allowing business owners to manage their ad campaigns with the agreement that they will charge them a fee whenever a searcher that sees the ad decides to click on it, even if they don't buy something.

The fees they charge are not very large ones ($0.05 to $1.00 at most), but the money can ad up fast if you get a web surfer who gets click happy.

To help control spending even more Google has made it possible for an advertiser to put a roof on the spending budget in their adwords campaign. When the roof is reached Google will no longer display the ad until the budget is renewed.

This consideration has allowed AdWords to flourish without advertisers viewing Google as a power hungry fiend.

To register for an Adwords account advertisers can go to www.adwords.google.com. To register is free, the results, priceless.

About the Author:

Need to optimize or "fix" your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to ppc outsourcing, he's the man!

Advertise using Pay Per Click? What's That?

By Kirt Christensen

Often the name for a process or a business doesn't make sense. If you step back and take a look 'pay-per-click' is one of the strangest, especially if you are not conversant with internet terms. But if you are conversant with the world-wide-web the term 'pay-per-click' makes perfect sense.

Here is a thought. Running a site on the web takes money, in particular if you are an enormously popular search engine. There are fees and costs for everything from the domain to the staff that keeps the 24 hour a day process running and keeps the website in the lead on technology and features, and to maintain a smooth flow of operations

Just because you are this great search engine, there isn't someone waiting to pay the bills for you. There are no freebees.

So how are you going to earn the money that you need to keep yourself in business? After all, you already have a full time job; you're a search engine, you spend all day taking people where they want to go.

Then you see it. All those visitors coming to your site everyday, seeing everything you have on your pages. You could let people advertise on your site, sell them the traffic and a little space from your webpage. They get exposed to thousands of visitors and you can charge them whatever you like because they can't get displayed like this anywhere else.

The only problem is that many more people are going to see you while they go about their daily internet surfing than are going to read a newspaper or watch a television commercial.

It seems unfair that you should charge them in the same manner as these inferior technologies for what is obviously a superior service. Then it comes to you. Pay per click advertising.

Consider this. The greater the quantity of people visiting a website the more profit the business owner in question is going to make.

This is a great opportunity for you. If you charge the advertiser a small fee, maybe $0.05 or $0.10 each time a surfer comes through on the web and chooses their advertisement and clicks on it, even if the surfer doesn't buy anything, your advertiser is not going to complain.

They inevitably recoup the fee you charge them through the growth of their profit margin; however, you know the fickleness of web browsers and how they like to click on these advertisements for no apparent reason.

Now you come up with a method of helping your advertisers by allowing them to set a limit to how many clicks they will get before you pull their ad so it is not shown anymore. This prevents psycho clickers from draining your advertisers budget by repeatedly clicking on their ads.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is pay per click advertising.

About the Author:

Need to optimize or "fix" your Adwords & PPC campaigns? Kirt Christensen manages over $600k in PPC spending & knows what it takes to make your account hum! When it comes to adwords ppc management, he's the man!

Increase Web Site Traffic - How to with paid search advertising

By Terry Stanfield

If you've tried to increase web site traffic with search engine marketing and search engine optimization but you still aren't seeing the kind of web site traffic that you want to have it might be time to consider investing in some web advertising. There are different options when it comes to web advertising but the styles of web advertising used the most by businesses is and paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is a good option if you've already tried search engine marketing and search engine optimization because your site is already well set up for paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is paying to make sure that a link to your site and a description of site is placed at the very top of a search engine results page.

This is a smart move because studies have shown that people who are searching for a site will usually click on any one of the first five links at the top of the search engine results page and then they will stop. Consumers almost never click through to the second page of search engine results after doing a search. So paying to make sure that your site is at the top of the search engine results page can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Figuring out how to manage your paid search advertising can be a little difficult if you're not used to how web advertising works so you're better off hiring a paid search management company to oversee your paid search advertising. When you're setting up a paid search to increase web site traffic the keywords and key phrases that you choose need to be chosen carefully. A qualified paid search management company can help you set up your paid search to maximize the time and effort you've already put into using search engine marketing and search engine optimization on your website to increase website traffic.

Using paid search to increase web site traffic can be a very cost effective way to get the most of your search engine marketing. Essentially paid search web advertising is just giving your search engine marketing a boost and making sure that people see a link to your site before all your competitors. If your website deals with a popular topic then using paid search web advertising is really like insurance that your site make it onto the first page of the search engine results page.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on How to increase web site traffic and here for related info on Paid Search Management.

Increase Web Site Traffic - Discover How with Video Marketing

By Terry Stanfield

Have you thought about using internet video marketing to increase web site traffic? Internet video marketing is a very trendy form of web advertising right now and many companies are using a combination of search engine optimization and internet video marketing to increase traffic and increase their customer base. These days customers want more than just a slick ad. If you want to draw customers to your website the best way is to combine some web advertising with a fun and informational internet video marketing campaign. You should still use search engine optimization on your site to makes sure that your site gets shown on the front page of the search engine results pages and you might want consider buying some paid search web advertising too but once you have lured customers onto your site pitch your product with some new internet video marketing.

Information videos are a big hit on the web, so post a short information video about your product or show someone using your product or you can even post someone giving a video review of your product. With sites out there like YouTube you don't even have to host the video on your site. Using YouTube is a fabulous and free way to start an Internet video marketing campaign that can be more effective than any other type of web advertising to increase web site traffic because YouTube videos are so easy to share with people. If you post a funny or unique video related to your product the people who see that video and like it can instantly post it on their own websites or their profiles on sites like Facebook and MySpace that are seen by millions of people everyday. They can also email it to friends and family and submit it to sites like Digg or Current where thousands more people will see it.

Internet video marketing can increase your web site traffic almost instantly once you post the right video. The best part of video marketing is that except for the cost of producing the video it's all free. You can increase your web site traffic by thousands all for the cost of the video. And some videos are so low tech they can be made with a small digital camera or even a camera phone. Using an Internet video marketing campaign along with search engine optimization and search engine marketing is the best way to advertise your website and increase your web site traffic. Forget about expensive web advertising that doesn't work.

You can use the free social networking and marketing tools on the Internet to increase web site traffic and take your business to the next level and double or triple the number of hits that you get on your website everyday. A few words of caution though - when you're producing internet videos don't make them too high tech or over produced. Keep in mind that some people will be viewing the video on a slow internet connection. Make a video that will load quickly and play fast so that people can view it even if they don't have a high speed Internet connection or offer two versions of the video with one optimized for high speed connections and one optimized for slower connections.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on increase web site traffic and related info about Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Marketing - You still need HTML Meta Tags

By Terry Stanfield

If you start to panic when you see "HTML" and think that using HTML Meta tags is something that will be too difficult for you don't panic. Using these tags is a big part of search engine marketing and is very important when it comes to using search engine optimization to help your website get more traffic. These tags are words, usually the same keywords or key phrases that you are using throughout your website in an effort to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to increase the number of people who find your website.

The difference between Meta tags and the keywords and key phrases scattered throughout the rest of your website is that the these tags are tucked into the HTML coding of your site. No one that visits your site will see these keywords or key phrases. The tags are put into the HTML code of the website so that the spiders or bots that the search engines send out will find your website. The spiders that the search engines use to index and rank web pages will find those tags by following a long series of other words and phrases on other websites. Using Meta tags is important to search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Some search engines will assign a rank to a website based on how many times the keywords or key phrases appear and also where the keywords and key phrases appear on a website. So it's important to put them at the top of your website so that search engine bots will rank your site higher than other sites.

Even if you are not experienced at creating HTML code or working with HTML code you can put Meta tags for search engine marketing and search engine optimization purposes on your website by yourself. Instead of looking at the normal view of your website you need to look at the source code. Once you are in the source code you can enter in the HTML Meta keywords and key phrases that you want to use. If you are using a website design software the software will usually prompt you to enter some tags and then you can just input the same keywords or key phrases that you have used on the rest of the site.

Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are really the best way to drive traffic to your website so even if you don't know that much about HTML or don't feel comfortable with HTML it's important that you learn how to use these tags because having the keywords and key phrases that are featured on your site as Meta tags can bring in a lot of traffic for your website. The best ways to make your website so popular with consumers that it starts to make a lot of money for you is to use tried and true methods like proper placement of HTML Meta tags, search engine optimization on the website and search engine marketing tools to increase your rank on search engine results pages.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info about Search Engine Optimization.

Make Money On Web

By Andy Michaels

Making money in general is something that is tough to do today. It is often something that people strive for because it allows them to live the life that they want to live. Money is, after all, one of the most important things that people can achieve. No matter what they'd like to do with themselves, it is important that they are able to get the money that they need to earn in order to live the type of life that they would really like to live. In order to make money on web, a person needs to keep a few things in mind, so that they can achieve the best for themselves.

For starters, you'll need to figure out where your skills lie if you want to make money on web. People who make money on web, generally speaking, have identified something that they are better at than just about anyone else. Figuring out what this skill is in your particular case is where you must begin if you want to make money on web.

The second thing to think about when you want to make money on web is what your hobbies are. If you can find something to do online that not only is something that you are good at, but also something that correlates with one of your hobbies, you'll be able to be much more successful. After you have thought about what you are good at, you should think about your hobbies, and see if you can work the two together in any way.

Monetizing your passion, your desires, is where the skill comes in. Carve a niche out for yourself, and establish yourself as an expert within that niche. Not all niches are created equal, but with nearly one billion people on the planet able to get internet access, it doesn't take a large percentage to build up a readership.

After you have developed your niche it is really time to get right out there and begin it. You are firstly going to want to develop a website for yourself. This is the best way that you can make money on web. Be sure that your are providing a service or offering a product, and then find a website to sell it to others. Be sure that you have priced everything fairly, and get started.

Lastly, in order to make money on web, you need to make sure that you are keeping up with the times and doing all that you can to insure that your business can move forward with the times. If you really want to make money on web, you'll be able to do this quite easily.

You can make money on web without having your own business, but be careful. A lot of sites will offer you the ability to make money on web but do not really deliver on their promises. Do your due diligence on any offer you see which interests you and claims to let you make money on web.

If you work on the things you love, then the time spent on them does not feel like work and the quality will show.

About the Author:

See more of his stuff at Blog how to earn cash. Visit blog to read about make money.

The Value of Testimonials in Online Marketing

By Jason Pearson

It takes some work to seek out customers who are willing to write about their great experience with your service or product. When you can display these testimonials online however, there are fewer more effective strategies in convincing prospects to spend their money on your site. To make sure you are using testimonials the right way, follow these tips.

First and foremost, you must reassure consumers that what they see listed on your website are not false testimonials generated by someone in your marketing department. It could be disastrous to your credibility as an online merchant and business owner in general if you publish fake claims about your products. Savvy buyers are quick to realize that companies who need to fabricate information about their services are not genuine or trustworthy.

To know which of your customers would be well-suited to write a testimonial, offer a survey at the end of their experience. You can get an idea of how happy they were overall and about each part of the process along the way. You will also be able to tell if they are a potential cheerleader of your business.

Ideally, if your product has made someone's life easier, she may be grateful enough to share this solution with others, just because she wants to help others out. Realistically, if you include a coupon or giveaway with a completed survey, you will get more responses. It's also a good idea to get a professional's help when writing your survey, to make sure you get the right kind of information in return.

Since it is not always possible to draw from an existing customer base, you could also reach out to email subscribers. You simply explain that they could have a product or service for free in exchange for an honest evaluation. This is especially effective if you are trying to break into a new market and have no existing clientele.

Advertise that you are seeking both good and bad feedback. People love making their opinions known. They also like having input on new products and are more likely to recommend this product to others and be repeat customers.

Don't fall into the trap of fabricating testimonials just because you suspect your competitors have done so. If your product is new to the market, you have to extend yourself that much more and offer some freebies to get what you need. In the process you may just build a strong customer base and a sense of satisfaction as well.

Using testimonials is a great way to polish the image of your business. Trusting that your honest business practices and high quality service will lead you to success can be difficult. It is only a matter of time before others recognize your strengths and pass this information along to others.

About the Author:

Jason Pearson is an online marketing expert who wants to share his secrets with the world. To find out more...

Increase Web Site Traffic - How with SEO

By Terry Stanfield

Do you need to find a way to increase web site traffic? Have you used any search engine optimization on your website? Before you do any expensive web advertising or build an expensive new site try using some simple search engine optimization on your website to increase your web site traffic. Search engine optimization is the best way to increase web site traffic and increase your position on the search engine results pages. Getting into a higher place on the search engine results pages means more hits to your website and more customers.

In order to get your site high up on that search engine results page and increase web site traffic you need to use search engine optimization on your website. Search engine optimization can often be more effective than web advertising for increasing website traffic. Now you're probably wondering how you can practically implement search engine optimization on your site to increase web site traffic. There are two ways that you increase the search engine optimization on your site.

If you have an existing site that has a lot of good content on it already you can have that content rewritten to add in some search engine optimized keywords and key phrases or you can write all new content and completely change the content that you have on the site. Even if you already have a lot of content on the site sometimes it's a good idea to put in all new search engine optimized content just to freshen up the site a little and draw new visitor. You can write the search engine optimized content yourself or you can hire writers that are experienced in creating search engine marketing and search engine optimized content to increase web site traffic. Hiring a professional SEO copy writer is a good idea if you want to see an immediate increase in web site traffic because a professional copy writer will be able to create content for your site very quickly.

When you're trying to build a website that is competitive in your market and will draw a lot of web traffic from the very beginning it's a good idea to hire professional SEO writers who can make sure that the content on your site will get it listed on the high in search engine. If your site doesn't make it on the first page of the SERP chances are good that you won't see any increase in web traffic. Your site needs to be on the first page of the SERP in order to increase web site traffic.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on increase web site traffice and related info about Search Engine Optimization.

Some Link Building Strategies

By sehgal

In very simply words, link popularity refers to the number and quality of the links that are pointing to your site. In the engine's view, your site is considered important as well. These other sites consider your site important enough to link to. What is meant by link popularity can get much more complex, which is discussed further in this article. Now that we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way, let's get down to business: learning ways to increase the link popularity of our sites.

However, one of the most difficult areas of SEO services is building link popularity. Try those strategies now and you can easily find yourself booted out of an engine. Solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with the search engines. In SEO, factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. Why? Because the engines don't want artificially created links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link building exchange programs are over.

Rather, the engines want links from authoritative sites, or links from sites that share the same focus as your site. After each strategy, we briefly attributed it to the SEO who sent it to us, and then we provided a list of all contributors along with their companies and URL's at the end of the article. To write this article, we went to professional search engine optimizers for their ideas. But besides the link popularity you gain by getting an authoritative site to link to you, you also gain additional visibility for your Web site. So, if you work on building link popularity, don't forget those two basic reasons and details for requesting links.

If you use them as recommended in this article, you will have no problems. Keep in mind that these strategies aren't in any particular order. When looking through this links, you may find strategies that are subject to abuse. Also, keep in mind that though it isn't always stated explicitly, we're always referring to related and important or authoritative sites as our targets.

About the Author:

Sehgal is a professional seo guy for PR 5 Web Directory & Bidding Web Directory

Increase Web Site Traffic - How to with paid search advertising

By Terry Stanfield

If you've tried to increase web site traffic with search engine marketing and search engine optimization but you still aren't seeing the kind of web site traffic that you want to have it might be time to consider investing in some web advertising. There are different options when it comes to web advertising but the styles of web advertising used the most by businesses is and paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is a good option if you've already tried search engine marketing and search engine optimization because your site is already well set up for paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is paying to make sure that a link to your site and a description of site is placed at the very top of a search engine results page.

This is a smart move because studies have shown that people who are searching for a site will usually click on any one of the first five links at the top of the search engine results page and then they will stop. Consumers almost never click through to the second page of search engine results after doing a search. So paying to make sure that your site is at the top of the search engine results page can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Figuring out how to manage your paid search advertising can be a little difficult if you're not used to how web advertising works so you're better off hiring a paid search management company to oversee your paid search advertising. When you're setting up a paid search to increase web site traffic the keywords and key phrases that you choose need to be chosen carefully. A qualified paid search management company can help you set up your paid search to maximize the time and effort you've already put into using search engine marketing and search engine optimization on your website to increase website traffic.

Using paid search to increase web site traffic can be a very cost effective way to get the most of your search engine marketing. Essentially paid search web advertising is just giving your search engine marketing a boost and making sure that people see a link to your site before all your competitors. If your website deals with a popular topic then using paid search web advertising is really like insurance that your site make it onto the first page of the search engine results page.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on How to increase web site traffic and here for related info on Paid Search Management.

Search Engine Marketing - What is Social Marketing?

By Terry Stanfield

Social marketing is a new form of advertising that is just starting to become popular. Often social marketing is a favorite of small businesses because it is virtually free although in order to use it to drive traffic to a website the company still needs to use traditional search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques. It is build around the idea of link strategies and using personal networking to drive website traffic. Before the widespread use of social networking sites social marketing really wasn't a viable option for most mainstream businesses but now the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook has made social networking and social marketing very popular. Link strategies that are often used in social marketing involve creating free accounts on these popular social networking sites and then using search engine marketing techniques to increase traffic and network with others who interested in the same topics or with customers. Using search engine optimization to create search engine marketing content on your social networking profile pages can help get your profile listed in search engine results pages and you can use search engine marketing articles to help gain readers and friends across the net.

This type of marketing isn't just limited to using sites like MySpace and Facebook. You can use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to socially market your blog as well. Many companies these days prefer having blogs to having traditional websites because blogs are much more accessible to people and make people feel like they have a personal connection with the company. Blogging is hugely popular. Many popular blog sites are free so you can set up a free blog to be the front page of your web page and you can put links throughout the blog that lead to other pages on your web page so that your readers can find your other search engine marketing articles and information or buy your products. The best link strategies for blogs involve taking the time to form alliances with other bloggers. Blogging networks have huge followings and many times if you join a blog network or go to the blogs of people who share your interest or sell complementary products you can leave comments on that person's blog that link back to your own site.

Even though that type of advertising can be a little time consuming it's a great way to use search engine marketing to reach your target audience for free. Blogging communities also usually link to one another's blogs which means that you can use your networking contacts to help you publicize your website. Social marketing can be tricky though because it's more than just using search engine marketing, link strategies and SEO. There are a lot of social networking etiquette rules that need to be observed and if you don't follow protocol you could be ostracized. When you're using social networking you should never just post links to your website on other people's blogs, that's considered spamming. Take the time to read other blogs and leave relevant comments. Usually then you will be allowed to post a link to your own website.

About the Author:

Before you do anything go to Terry Stanfield's site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info about Search Engine Optimization.

Small Business Marketing Environments Influence Your Business

By Linda P. Morton

Small business marketing environments influence your small business marketing in numerous ways besides just marketing strategies and tactics.

If you, as a small business owner, only think of marketing as what you do to promote and advertise your product or service, you are missing many opportunities to improve your marketing.

You need to consider the following ten small business marketing environments as you plan your small business marketing.

Small Business Marketing Environment 1: Your Business, Your Employees

Everyone working in your business enhances or diminishes your marketing. If your employees make positive comments about your business to others, that's good marketing. If they make negative comments, it hurts your ability to market.

Small Business Marketing Environment 2: The Businesses That Serve You

Some vendors will help deter advertising expenses through cooperative advertising. Some provide promotional information that you can use to promote your business. All influence how well you can meet orders by how they supply what you need to do so.

Small Business Marketing Environment 3: Distributors

People who deliver your product to your customers influence your marketing because they determine how well you effectively and efficiently distribute your product to your customers. In addition, they will talk about your business to other businesses that they serve. If what they say is positive, that's good marketing. If not, your marketing has to work double to overcome their negative statements.

Small Business Marketing Environment 4: People Who Sell Your Product In Their Stores

Which retailers carry your product, the type of customers they attract, and whether they feature your products in their advertising all affect your marketing. In addition, how well they display your product in their stores or whether they will even give you shelf space influences your marketing.

Small Business Marketing Environment 5: Competitors

Knowing all you can about your competitors and their products has a great effect on your marketing. If you know the pros and cons of their businesses and products and how yours compares, you'll know what to emphasize in your marketing messages.

Small Business Marketing Environment 6: Other People

Publics influence your business in other ways besides buying your product. Their support can be a great marketing boost. Their lack of support often requires public relations marketing to diminish their influence on potential buyers and other publics.

Small Business Marketing Environment 7: Target Market

By now, you should know that there's more to marketing than just efforts to reach and sell to your target market . Still your target market have the greatest influence on your sales so you should learn all you can about target market members in order to base your marketing on what best appeals to them.

Small Business Marketing Environment 8: Demographics

Knowing factual characteristics (demographics) about your target market reveals much about their attitudes, values, concerns and buying preferences. People differ by factual characteristics such as income, type of occupation, amount of education, their race and gender. The more you know about them, the better you can design marketing that appeals to them.

Small Business Marketing Environment 9: The Economy

Economic situations influence what sells and how much of those products sell. During recessionary economies, people often eliminate unnecessary expenses. During inflationary economies people spend more and on more luxury products. Thus, different economic situations call for different marketing strategies and tactics.

Small Business Marketing Environment 10: Natural Resources

Natural resources influence your product's price because the less a resource is available, the more you have to pay for it. To continue to make a profit, you have to pass that price on to your customers. This, in turn, influences if and how much of your product will sell.

Small Business Marketing Environment: In Conclusion

Marketing is much more than what you say and do to attract potential customers. It includes a mix of product, price, promotion, distribution and other elements that are influenced by different small business marketing environments.

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What is Niche Marketing?

By Kim and Charles Petty

The word 'niche' is defined as: "A special area of demand for a product or service". 'Marketing' is defined as: "The opportunity to buy or sell". If you put the two works together, niche marketing means buying or selling a product or service in a special area of demand. All that really means is that a product or service is being sold to the people who are most interested in that particular product or service and not to the world in general.

Oftentimes big businesses use niche marketing. For example, a company that makes computers and computer accessories might advertise all-in-one copy/printer/scanners to the home computer user while at the same time advertising single function machines to large businesses.

One of the things that make niche marketing so attractive to sellers is that their advertising budgets go further. It costs less to advertise to a specialized market than it does to advertise to a broader market.

Niche marketing must be designed to meet the unique needs of the targeted audience. Niche marketers must tailor their product to meet those unique needs. If, for example, you have designed a product to make poodle grooming easy enough for the untrained professional to do it, those who own poodles will be most interested in your product. Those who own Blood Hounds or cats couldn't care less. If you have written an e-book that will explain how to start and succeed at an online business, those who are looking for that information are your niche market. Those who are happy doing what they are doing are not interested at all.

Niche marketing is a very effective and cost efficient way to advertise and sell specific products or services to a specific audience or, hopefully, buyers of that product or service.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & overseas go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

How to Use Overture to Identify a Hot Demand

By Kim and Charles Petty

The Overture Search Tool is a wonder to behold. There are so many tools and so much help available at the site that when you visit you will be asking why nobody has told you about this before now. The costs are small and the services are large and extremely helpful to Internet entrepreneurs. It is free to join the site and there are so many ways for you to help yourself. You can locate the best keywords for your business you can find out what the top bid is on the best key words and you have to opportunity to place a higher bid. For only the very small price of $1.99 you can get even more help.and from professionals.

There are a couple of differences to take note of, however. The free service gives you access to the STST. The way that overture will make a profit here, since the service is free, is by selling you the best key words. There's nothing wrong with thateverybody has to make a profit to stay in business. The Keyword tool on Google gives a complete different set of Keywords. They don't sell the keywords so it makes you wonder which list of Keywords are the best.

If you have not yet made use of Overture, this is certainly a tool you should take the time to explore. Bidding very high on the best Keywords can move your advertisements into the top ten search results in the major search engines very quickly.

We all know that search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to making sales and making use of Overture is one of the best ways to accomplish that task.

Overture was originally named GoTo.com. It changed its name to Overture in October, 2001 and was purchased by Yahoo in 2003.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy meeting on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & overseas go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

What Niche Marketing is Not

By Kim and Charles Petty

Niche marketing is not about trying to sell your product or service to the world at large. As a small businessperson, you couldn't afford that kind of multi-million dollar advertising budget. It isn't possible. You can, however, with only a computer, an Internet connection and a good idea sell to a smaller audience using niche marketing.

Niche marketing is not about trying to compete. Competition is taken out of the equation when you do niche marketing. You aren't out there in the world lined up beside or behind a million other people who are selling the same thing you are selling. You are selling to a specific audience that you have created for yourself with your opt-in email list.

Niche marketing is not about selling to different people every day of the week. Once you have your list built, you can sell to the same people time and time again. By taking as much time as you need and putting forth enough effort to get to know the people who make up your list of buyers you can continue to sell to them.

Niche marketing is not about focusing on the big picture. It is about focusing on the small picture and the smaller the better. Narrowing your niche down to a very specific part of a larger market assures you of gaining a fair market share of that small part. The world is a big place and there are billions of people. You only need an infinitesimal portion of the population to have a huge list of potential buyers of your products or services.

Niche marketing is not about seeing only the impossibilities. Niche marketing is only about looking closely at the possibilities. Small possibilities converted to sales can equal big profits.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experts in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy meeting on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & overseas go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

What Niche Marketing Really Is

By Kim and Charles Petty

It is just one of those hard, cruel facts of life that the big boys have all the money they need to advertise and sell their products and us little guys are on advertising budgets that are so small they probably don't add up to what the big boys spend on paper clips in a month. Competing with the big boys isn't feasibleor possible, for that matter. So what are us little guys supposed to do?

Niche marketing is our answer. We can't advertise our products and services to the world at large but we don't have to be able to do that to be able to make a pretty decent living thanks to the Internet.

Niche marketing is selling specific products or services to a limited audience. One person with a computer, an internet connection and a good idea can go into business for himself on the Internet and target the people who would be most interested in what he has to sell and do all of the above on a very limited advertising budget.

Finding the right niche for what you have to sell isn't really all that difficult. Just think about who the people are who would be most interested in what you have to sell. For example, if you have concocted a shampoo formula that will take chlorine out of a person's hair, you can't compete with giant companies that sell shampoo but you can narrow your market down to a niche and target sales to those who have swimming pools. You buy a domain, get a server, and build a website to advertise your product JUST to people who have swimming pools.

In essence, niche marketing is selling a product or service to those who want or need the product the most.

About the Author:

Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to schedule strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228